Essential Industries Disputes Settlement Board or inflict harsh realities on itself and, perhaps, the Country. It seems to us that Grotto Bay has to face the realities of the law and at least follow the ruling pending the appeal which it thinks it can win. It is true, as Professor Ronald Houghton, the chairman of the Board, has said, that parties are free to take any legal action which Bermuda law allows.

Clearly Grotto Bay management was unhappy at having to submit to the Board in the first place and clouded the issue by its own choice of absenteeism bordering on contempt. But the fact is that the Board was duly constituted by law and that many people saw it as a hope for the future in settling essential industry disputes, especially in the hotel industry, without strikes impacting on our premier tourism industry. Grotto Bay cannot fly in the face of the law just because it does not agree with the Board's decision.

Grotto Bay has become something of a maverick in the hotel industry and that may not be an accident. It is one of the few larger hotels substantially owned by Bermudians and it appears now to be a "stalking horse'' in the ongoing conflict between the hotels and the leadership of the Bermuda Industrial Union in these difficult times for both hotel owners and hotel workers. The BIU needs hotels to deduct union dues from workers' pay cheques because it is cash poor. Some hotels clearly want to be rid of the BIU and see a bad year and the workers' need for jobs as the opportunity to "sort out the union''.

It may be that Grotto Bay workers are better off financially without mandatory tipping but that was not the testimony at the inquiry. We think there are some independent minded hotel workers who prefer a system which allows them to work for their own tips. Grotto Bay guests may be happier without automatic gratuities, an innovation which it has gone to some lengths to publicise overseas. The fact is that the Grotto Bay dispute has been the subject of a disputes board ruling which is legally binding, although the decision can be appealed just as court cases can be appealed.

The General Manager of Grotto Bay has said, unwisely we think, "I'm not going to let an outside board interfere with the manner in which management operates the hotel.'' This is clearly not an "outside board'' because, while it has a desirably independent chairman from overseas, it is properly constituted by Bermuda law.

BIU President Mr. Ottiwell Simmons has said, quite correctly we think, "What he (Mr. Robinson) has got to understand is that this board is legal board, and the decisions they give are legally binding.'' We would have exactly the same view if the decision of the Board had gone against the BIU and officials of the union had announced that the BIU was going to ignore the Board's ruling.