Labour peace could be on the horizon at the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board.
A tentative deal has been reached between the board and its unionized support staff.
Support staff at the Windsor-Essex Catholic School Board picket outside area schools. October 2016. (Photo by AM800's Teresinha Medeiros)
The agreement between the board and Unifor Local 2458 was announced late Thursday night following lengthy contract talks in Toronto that also involved officials from the Ministry of Education.
Unifor Local 2458 President Bruce Dickie says "This was an extremely challenging round of negotiations and the strike has been difficult on everyone involved." Dickie adds "now we have a tentative agreement to present to our members for ratification."
Catholic school board trustee will be called to an emergency in-camera meeting to consider ratification of the deal.
"We are not completely out of the woods just yet," says school board spokesperson Stephen Fields. "Membership and our trustees have to ratify the deal but to use a tired old sport cliche, we are at the goal line and we need to punch it into the end zone."
The unionized workers will be voting on the agreement this Saturday at 11:00am at the union hall at 3400 Somme Ave.
The 370 workers walked off the job October 17th to back contract demands.
The workers include office, clerical staff and technicians along with custodians, maintenance staff and campus ministers.
Details of the tentative deal have not been released.