Unionised workers at a fast-food restaurant have won their right to take a dispute over pay and conditions to an independent tribunal.But, last night, both sides in the stand-off were claiming victory after Chief Justice Ian Kawaley ruled that any arbitration talks between KFC Bermuda and the Bermuda Industrial Union should not be binding. The Chief Justice also ruled the tribunal should not be bound by the terms of reference laid out when the dispute was originally sent to arbitration.The dispute made headlines last year when KFC managers opted out of the firm's three-year-old collective bargaining agreement it had with employees. The BIU condemned that decision, arguing that the contract should remain in place until a new settlement was thrashed out.When talks in the increasingly ill-tempered dispute broke down in April 2012, BIU members marched on the premises and called for customers to boycott the business as a “last resort” to management's “back door tactics”. A month later, then-Economy and Trade Minister Patrice Minors referred the matter to arbitration.At a hearing last month, lawyers for KFC tried to block that development, arguing that, as a private company, management had a right to “negotiate freely” with staff without interference from an outside tribunal. It also argued that the Minister was wrong to refer the matter to arbitration in the first place because the restaurant was not an essential industry and therefore any labour dispute was not an issue of national importance.But in his ruling released yesterday, Chief Justice Kawaley said that a tribunal “is the appropriate forum for the precise parameters of the issues to be determined to be worked out”. He added that the courts were not “competent” to question a Ministerial decision to refer labour disputes to arbitration “save in extreme cases”.However, he added that the tribunal would not have “draconian powers” dictating how KFC should run its operation.“It [the tribunal] is empowered to determine existing and past disputes but cannot lawfully make binding determinations which have the effect of imposing a new bargain on the parties as regards future terms and conditions,” Chief Justice Kawaley ruled.“However, the tribunal can no doubt encourage the parties to resolve disputes about future contractual terms and can probably make non-binding recommendations in this regard.”Last night the BIU claimed it had been “successful” in securing the right to have the matter heard by an independent tribunal.“That is one for the good guys,” BIU organiser Ronnie Burgess said in an e-mail.But KFC also declared victory saying that its central argument — that Government should not be allowed to “unnecessarily interfere with the process of commercial contract negotiations” — had essentially been upheld by the Chief Justice.“Although the court has ultimately concluded that the Minister has the authority to declare a dispute and appoint a tribunal, it has also addressed KFCB's fundamental concerns by declaring that the tribunal does not have any binding powers to compel KFCB and the BIU to accept a new contract against either party's will,” KFC director Jason Benevides said in a statement.“It is a great relief that the court has upheld the principle that in the case of a non-essential industry the terms of any labour agreement must be freely negotiated and willingly accepted by the parties to the contract.”At last month's hearing, BIU lawyer Delroy Duncan said that Minister Minors was correct to take the much-publicised dispute to arbitration.“Rather than leave the dispute rolling on in the streets, a mechanism was used to take it off the streets — to take the heat out of the dispute,” Mr Duncan argued.The lawyer also pointed out that a tribunal would allow low-paid workers to get a fair contract without the expense of having to take their case to court.But lawyers for KFC implied that the Minister's decision was politically motivated, suggesting that any labour unrest — particularly in the run up to a general election — might tarnish Government's record.“Yes, the boycott was newsworthy, everyone was very interested in it and everyone wanted to talk about it,” Peter Sanderson said.“But this was not a dispute that was going to spill out into other industries, so why was it necessary to put a lid on it? Was it something that was politically expedient because we were in an election year?”The company had negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with the BIU in 2008. But a clause in that agreement allowed either party to opt out of the agreement after three years.In February 2011, bosses notified staff that it intended to renegotiate the agreement, but after six months of talks, management and union representatives were still deadlocked over a number of conditions of employment, including pension and health contributions for some workers.As a result, in December 2011, company chiefs announced that the collective bargaining agreement was null and void.In his judgement yesterday, the Chief Justice did not make a ruling on whether the company had a right to terminate its collective bargaining agreement after three years — an act that the BIU questioned. But he did suggest that the company acted within the terms of the agreement.“It is difficult to see on what basis it might be argued that KFC had not validly terminated the CBA and why this matters if, as is now agreed, the incorporated terms and conditions live on in the employment contracts,” he said, adding that it was an issue that the tribunal would be able to settle.KFC had also questioned the make-up of the three-man arbitration panel, arguing that BIU elder statesman George Baisden would not be impartial in any negotiations.Chief Justice Kawaley acknowledged that Mr Baisden's selection “does arguably create an appearance of bias, but it is far from an open and shut case”.He declined to consider a KFC request that Mr Baisden be removed from the panel, stating that the issue should be raised once the tribunal gets underway.