the way they function. People with political messages, honourable and dishonourable, almost always ride on the backs of trade unions and trade-unionists. But it has been demonstrated time and again in other countries that strikes as a means of political power aimed at undermining the government in power usually backfire and result in undermining the political party supporting the union.

In recent days it would have been easy to wonder just what was happening between the BIU and the Progressive Labour Party. It seems to us that while public opinion did not influence the Bermuda Industrial Union against industrial action, it did influence the PLP to move away from the BIU.

The PLP, which has always been allied with the BIU and which has traditionally had the BIU hierarchy as members of parliament, suddenly joined with the UBP Government and the National Liberal Party in introducing an emergency labour law designed to solve conflicts.

The action seems to have been taken because the PLP realised that public opinion was running hard against industrial action in the midst of a recession. PLP people told the PLP that they wanted to keep their jobs and protect their families. The PLP recognised that the BIU was losing public appeal and moved to distance itself from Ottiwell Simmons. That must have been something of a shock to the BIU which remained outside public influence. It is difficult to assess what this must have done to the thinking of the BIU hierarchy which has traditionally been able to count on automatic PLP backing.

The PLP might know that labour parties elsewhere rely on trade unions for their cash but less and less attract the votes of trade-unionists themselves.

As an example, in Britain today the British Labour Party gets 72 percent of its income from United Kingdom labour unions but the allegiance of trade union members to the British Labour Party is in sharp decline and today only 30 percent of trade-unionists vote labour. We can only wonder how much money the PLP gets from the BIU and what the vote percentage is but, overseas, trade unions can no longer deliver a block vote.

We think the PLP realised that unqualified support for the BIU today is not the way to get general public favour. Thus the PLP made a decision in a crisis not to blindly support the BIU. That is a major departure because, traditionally, the PLP and the BIU have been as one.

Is this a permanent change? We would like to think so because the time has come for the BIU to fit into the perspective of Bermudian life rather than constantly threaten Bermudian life. However, we have grave doubts that the PLP has the will to proceed without the BIU or that the PLP hierarchy would want to do so.

The reality seems to be that the last few weeks have been a watershed in Bermuda because public opinion was heard and prevailed. The people put their lifestyle and the Country first and refused to dance to the tune of the BIU.

The people told Ottiwell Simmons that they do not want him to be the most powerful man in Bermuda.