Board ruling `dismantles' the BIU
distinct effect of dismantling the Bermuda Industrial Union,'' the head of the union charged yesterday.
And Mr. Ottiwell Simmons MP also said he was "shocked'' at the indifference among BIU members to recent union setbacks.
In at least one instance, hotel management "has literally bribed our members,'' Mr. Simmons said at a news conference. "The same way Judas for 30 pieces of silver helped to put Christ on the cross.
"When you get people succumbing to this sort of temptation, it means that we've got to strengthen their resolve.'' Mr. Simmons was reacting to the Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board's report on the Grotto Bay tipping dispute. In the report released on Monday, the board said the hotel could not have acted unfairly when it moved unilaterally to raise employees' base pay and end mandatory tipping in 1991, because there was no contract in place for the hotel to violate.
Further, the board said there was no contract in place between the HEB as a whole and the BIU after February 24, 1991.
The BIU maintained collective agreements continued to exist between itself and both Grotto Bay and the Hotel Employers of Bermuda, Mr. Simmons said. Grotto Bay workers voted three times to reject the new contract that management imposed, he said.
"Notwithstanding the board's nefarious conclusions, it is our opinion that the union still has the legal and constitutional right to represent any of its members who are now or in the past have been employed by the Grotto Bay Hotel,'' he said.
"By this award the worker in Bermuda who wants to become a union member and remain a union member...his activities could criminalise him and have him or her sent to prison.
"This type of award is unprecedented anywhere in any civilised country that I've seen.'' Board chairman Mr. Michael Mello QC, who has since resigned citing his workload, "disregarded the evidence'', presented at hearings in July, September, and November, he said.
Mr. Simmons said he was confident the BIU could win a court appeal of the award, but the union did not plan to take that route.
Mr. Simmons did not say what the BIU would do in response to the report.
"Something will be done,'' he said. "I don't see a very bright 1993 tourist season at all.'' The BIU cannot legally strike over the issue, but "there is such a thing as an illegal strike, I suppose''.
Mr. Simmons said he has considered numerous options, including repeated marches on Grotto Bay and sit-ins in the dining room. But he did not favour those actions, he said.
While he praised the bravery of certain BIU members during a strike last year, "because of the sacrifices that these few have made, I am shocked at some of the apathy that permeates the working class'', he said.
Pink Beach management which gave workers a five percent pay raise after tearing up their contract, used bribery to break ties with the BIU, he said.
"The establishment is really taking advantage of workers that have, I believe, become a bit over-confident in the successes the workers have achieved in the recent past.'' The BIU would not fight the Grotto Bay award in court because "the basis of our whole system is supposed to be that no collective agreement is enforceable in a court of law'', Mr. Simmons said.
Although he said he was confident the union could defeat the award on appeal, he noted the courts last year fined the union $100,000-a-day and threatened to seize its assets.
"The union and the workers simply have no friends in high places.''