Strike reaches its denouement?

The civic strike wasn’t over when CUPE local 416 came to an agreement with the city yesterday.

It only ended when local 79 bargained a deal too.

“There are some common issues, then there are different issues,” said Pat Daley, CUPE spokesperson. “Local 79 has four collective agreements with the city and they represent four different groups of workers.

“Local 416 has one collective agreement.”

Daley said shared interests were wages, sick day and the sick plan.

On the other hand, the differences between the two come in what Daley terms as the 118-pages of concessions the city presented to local 416.

However, no one from either the union or the city would discuss specifics.

Mark Ferguson, president of local 416, did announce yesterday that the union had beaten back all the city’s concessions, while Mayor David Miller seemed to distance himself from Ferguson’s statement.

“As you know from my comments throughout the strike I have a quite different view of so-called concessions than Mr. (Mark) Ferguson,” Miller said. “We can’t get into the details until the members of the unions ratify and council ratifies the agreement.”

Deals have been made, but the unions still need to vote on the proposals. A vote has been tentatively scheduled for tomorrow.