While Toronto residents are pleased we will not be experiencing a work stoppage involving the city's unionized outside workers, it's important to remember there are still ongoing contract negotiations between the city and its other unions.
Sunday's tentative deal reached with CUPE Local 416, representing about 6,000 outside workers, sets the standard for the kinds of contracts the city's unionized inside workers and library workers can expect.
Here's hoping both those negotiations can end in a similar result: negotiated agreements between the two sides that avoid either a strike or a lockout.
There was a lot of attention and rhetoric surrounding the negotiations between CUPE 416 and the city.
To their credit, both sides were able to make serving Toronto residents the priority while coming up with a deal that took into consideration the needs of the city to operate efficiently while also respecting the workers and the challenges they face.
That willingness to come to an agreement needs to remain the focus for the city and its other unions as talks continue with CUPE Local 79, which represents some 18,000 unionized inside workers who do a huge variety of jobs, and TPLWU (Toronto Public Library Workers Union) CUPE Local 4948.
Sadly, negotiated agreements and a willingness to work together have not always been the result of city and union negotiations over the past decade in Toronto. We had city workers' strikes in both the summers of 2002 and 2009. They led to piles of stinking garbage in local parks, and residents furious at both the unions and city politicians.
Mayor Rob Ford's administration took a tough stance in terms of issues and tactics in these latest negotiations. Local 416 president Mark Ferguson termed the talks "one of the toughest labour negotiations in Canadian history."
CUPE's national president was at the hotel where bargaining was taking place. With a city administration unwilling to be seen as caving in, and a union feeling it had the eyes of all of Canada's unions on it, a deal was still able to be reached.
While the tentative contract has yet to be approved by union members and city council, it seems a positive policy of working toward negotiated agreements has now been set.
All sides need to stay on track, keep the rhetoric down, refrain from gloating and get the remaining contracts settled without work stoppages so the City of Toronto can grow and prosper.