TORONTO – The city of Toronto has reached tentative agreements with its workers after a 36-day strike.
Tens of thousands of employees belonging to two unions walked off the job June 22.
CUPE Local 79 spokeswoman Ann Dembinski said their ratification vote should take place Wednesday with picket lines coming down as soon as Thursday.
Dembinski said she was pleased to announce the tentative deal, but criticized the bargaining process.
“Labour relations has been set back decades,” she said Monday. “It will not be the same for years to come because of this labour disruption. Never have I seen anything like this.”
Dembinski said labour relations were negatively affected by the type of tactics used during negotiations, such as “publishing a bargaining offer,” which she said she has never seen done before.
Toronto Mayor David Miller released comprehensive details of the city’s offers, saying it was “important for us to tell the people of Toronto the facts.”
Miller called the announcement of the tentative deals “very good news for Torontonians” who have been watching garbage pile up for 36 days as the strike dragged on.
One of the main issues was whether workers should retain their banked sick days.
The city and the unions offered differing figures Monday on the total number of workers on strike. City officials gave the number as 30,000 while CUPE counted 6,200 outside workers and about 18,000 inside workers for a total of just over 24,000.
There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
All 57 city-run daycare centres closed, ferry service to the Toronto islands stopped, and recreation programming and park maintenance ended.
Garbage collectors and other outside workers represented by Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 416 won a preliminary settlement this morning.
But several more hours of negotiations passed before the city reached an agreement with CUPE Local 79.
