NOSM workers vote to end strike

When students return to Lakehead University Monday morning the picket lines will be gone after OPSEU members voted in favour of a collective agreement Friday afternoon.

OPSEU local 677 president Yuk-Sem Won said 78.2 per cent of the 150 workers at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine voted in favour of the tabled agreement, effectively ending their 12-week strike.

"We’re happy to be able to go back to work and that the agreement was reached between the two parties with something that was acceptable but it also took 12 weeks of strike to get there, which in our minds should never have happened in the first place," she said.

"So, it is a victory but it was a hard fought battle."

Won added that details of the agreement will not be released until the NOSM board of directors ratifies the agreement sometime next week.

Once the agreement is ratified by both parties the issue of when to go back to work will be discussed.

Won said her members could return to work as early as Wednesday.

"Those are further negotiations with the employer when they’re ready to have us back in," she said.

Until then, the union says there are still outstanding issues between members and management, but not enough to continue a strike, which has been ongoing since August.

"I think the 78.2 per cent really says that it was an OK agreement but it wasn’t fantastic," Won said.