College support staff will be back on the job Thursday after almost five weeks on the picket line , with a tentative deal that provides wage hikes but no guarantees that further layoffs, contracting out or campus mergers won’t happen.

The agreement — following marathon mediated talks that began over the Thanksgiving weekend and lasted until about 3 a.m. Wednesday — provides a $1.05-an-hour raise for all staffers in the first year, followed by two per cent raises in each of the following two years.

“It was a very difficult round of bargaining, I’m not going to lie,” Christine Kelsey, who headed OPSEU’s bargaining team, said in an interview, adding the pay bump in the first year was a big gain for the union given it provides the lowest paid members with an increase of about five per cent

See Full Page