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TORONTO The union representing city of Toronto outside workers says a settlement in the five-week-old strike must be achieved by midnight Sunday or negotiations will be over.
It’s time for the city of Toronto to figure out how to agree to a contract that will bring this strike to a conclusion, Toronto Civic Employees Union Local 416 CUPE President Mark Ferguson said at an afternoon news conference. It’s time for the city to move from giving its negotiators a mandate to bargain to giving them a mandate to settle.
The union tried as early as last March to conclude negotiations, but the city refused to move away from its concessionary demands, Ferguson said.
If the offer that the city made public on July 10 had been tabled in March, he said, we would have had something to negotiate and probably would have been able to avert a strike.
But it took three weeks with more than 24,000 people on the streets for the city to drop most of its concessions.
While some concessions remain on the table, Ferguson said he believes it is possible to reach a settlement in a little more than 48 hours.
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For more information, contact:
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications, 416-616-6142
