It's a done deal.
Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees locals 399 and 1048, representing the city's inside and outside workers, voted 88 per cent in favour of ratifying their new collective agreement Thursday night.
The four-year deal included a signing bonus of 0.5 per cent for 2013, and wage increases of 0.75 per cent in 2014 and two per cent annually for 2015 and 2016.
Union members voted on a contract that included slight changes to benefits and managed to hang on to job security and hours of work, said CUPE 399 president Gary Campbell.
Campbell said he was told Thursday night by city corporate services director Kathleen Soltis that mayor and council also voted in favour of the agreement during a special council meeting Thursday afternoon.
"I think the members are happy that the unrest is over and the uncertainty is over," said CUPE 1048 president Janet Bigelow.
But despite the rounds of bargaining and the one day of job action in December, Bigelow stressed the employees have been doing their jobs throughout the entire process.
"The workers have been working all along," she said. "The settling of the contract isn't going to make a difference on the clearing of the roads because the workers are working."
"It's been a long two years," she added, referring to city layoffs, the core services review process as well as collective bargaining.
According to Bigelow, members are also happy that the new agreement didn't get tied to the city's preferred net-zero mandate.
"The [union] bargaining committee dropped one sick day per year, traded it in to help boost our benefits," Campbell said.
A letter of understanding regarding a no-layoff clause for outside workers included in the previous collective agreement - which expired at the end of 2012 - was not renewed. There was no such agreement for inside workers.
