Last night we received the call from my Union president saying that we were to return to work at our next scheduled shift. I practically jumped up and down with excitement! Finally, I’ll be getting paid again.
But there was an underlying level of uneasiness and insecurity. City Council had not yet met to vote and ratify our new contracts. That wasn’t going to happen until 9:30am this morning.
Hopeful, I got in my van and drove to work, as instructed, and started work at 7:30. And thru the magic of Twitter, I found out that Rogers 10 would be streaming the Council meeting live on their site. So from that point on, I watched the Council meeting.
I’ve never actually watched a council meeting. It was crazy! People were yelling, hooting and hollering, interrupting each other and generally acting like a class of 9 year old kids. I had to stop watching at one point becuase they were just too hard to listen too.
After their lunch break, they resumed “talks” (yelling?) at 2pm. When I left work at 3:30pm, there was still no vote.
I went for a run (more about that in another post on another day), had dinner and put the kids to bed, before I found out that Council approved our new contracts with a vote of 21-17.
The strike is officially over.
39 days long. 39 days too many.