Toronto's outside workers accepted a four-year labour agreement Monday night that includes a six-per-cent wage hike over the life of the contract.
By accepting the deal, the city averts a strike or lockout of its workers and disruption of key city services.
The 6,000 garbage collectors, snow plow operators, paramedics and other outside workers had streamed into a mid-town union hall throughout the day to learn details of the deal and cast their votes.
More than 3,400 cast their votes in favour of the deal, but union head Mark Ferguson said they would not reveal the exact tally, noting that negotiations were ongoing with other unions.
"We faced incredible challenges in this round of bargaining including an employer that failed to reach compromises at many points during the negotiation process," Ferguson told reporters.
"We did not allow this to thwart our efforts to get to a collective agreement. We saw it our duty to represent our members and their wishes to negotiate a collective agreement on their behalf."
Ferguson said the agreement came with "significant compromise from all the members" and that some "very tough choices were made."
Highlights of the new four-year agreement include six per cent in wage improvements, an interest arbitration mechanism for Emergency Medical Services workers and the retention of employment security provisions for permanent employees with 15 years or more of service.
The City of Toronto had threatened to impose its own terms if a deal wasn't reached last weekend. CUPE told its members that the agreement came under the threat of layoffs with no grievance procedure, cut benefits and no job security.
"These negotiations were certainly different, we took a different tack than those before us have taken but I think others should have done this a long time ago," Toronto Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday told CP24.
Holyday conceded the city made some slight compromises adding that "that's what happens in negotiating and sometimes you have to give a little to get something."
The deputy mayor said a key compromise was made in the area of the so-called "jobs for life clause." Although the city tried to reduce the job security feature outright and the union tried to lower the required number of year, they settled on 15 years of service.
The deal will be taken to city council on Wednesday for approval.
Attention now turns to the city's 22,000 inside workers which include office clerks. Negotiations are ongoing.
