St. John's buses to roll again on Monday

A nearly three-month old strike by public transportation workers in St. John's has ended, with a large majority of union members voting Thursday evening to accept a tentative deal reached the day before.

The bus drivers and other Metrobus workers voted 79 per cent to accept the offer.

Metrobus said that if the tentative agreement was ratified, buses will return to service Monday, January 31st.

Back in November, the company wanted new employees to pay half the cost of health benefits.

Union leader Paul Churchill says the union conceded on that point.

"We were compensated in a financial package to be able to accept this 50/50," he said

The workers accepted a 20.5 per cent raise over five years.

About 100 workers went on strike in early November.

The major obstacle in the dispute was a demand from the company that new employees pay a bigger share of the cost of health care benefits.