if they do not receive tips they say are owed to them.

Sit-ins, sick-outs, and a strike by the hotel division with support from all other Bermuda Industrial Union divisions, were among the actions suggested by the workers at a meeting at BIU headquarters yesterday.

The meeting was called for hotel members to discuss the Haughton agreement and to decide what action should be taken to force employers to give workers 1992 tip increases.

Last month employers in the Island's major hotels told the Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board they spent the money and had no money to turn over to workers.

The Board subsequently decided workers should not be paid tip increases for 1992 as part of a proposed 1991-1994 contract settlement.

The decision, reached by a two-to-three majority, was a reversal of an earlier ruling in favour of the union.

BIU president Mr. Ottiwell Simmons has called the hotels' action "a crime against the people''.

And yesterday he told The Royal Gazette workers at the "fairly well attended'' meeting "determined that the hotels should be just and moral and pay their workers without workers having to take action''.

"If they (hotels) don't do that,'' he said, "they (workers) listed a number of actions they could take.'' The suggested actions included sit-ins, sick-outs, petitions, work-to-rule, and a strike of the hotel division "with support from all other divisions''.

Members also decided to call all shop stewards to an emergency meeting tomorrow, beginning at 2 p.m.

And Mr. Simmons said the only item on the agenda will be an "action plan'' to carry out whatever action members decided should be taken.

Another general membership meeting for all hotel workers will be held next Tuesday, beginning at 3 p.m.

"Workers that were at the meeting (yesterday) have committed themselves to bring as many workers as possible,'' Mr. Simmons added. PHOTO Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP.