Schools reopen, in-person learning resumes after CUPE, N.B. government reach tentative agreement

FREDERICTON -

Schools reopened Monday morning, a day after the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the New Brunswick government reached a tentative agreement after a strike that lasted 17 days.

Details of the agreement are not being made public, but the two sides had been focused on language surrounding pensions for two locals.

CUPE said Monday local executives will be presenting the offer to their members, and then voting will take place. They say everything should be done by Friday.

In the meantime, thousands of workers returned Monday morning – which meant schools could reopen.

"I feels great, back to school, back on the bus – back where I need to be. Not on the side of the road," said school bus driver Real Allain. "Nobody wanted to go on strike, nobody wanted to be there, but we needed to be there."

"He was very excited, after so many days, he wanted to see his friends," said one parent of a child in Grade 3.

The health-care sector is also relieved. Thousands of procedures and over 100 surgeries were postponed before health-care workers were ordered back to work under the province's emergency mandate.

"To ensure the provision of safe and quality care to our patients, Horizon is gradually ramping up to normal surgical volumes following the cancellation of a number of surgeries last week," Eileen MacGibbon, the vice-president of clinical services at Horizon Health Network, said in a statement. "We have been performing at 75 per cent of our normal surgical volume since last Monday, Nov. 8, and will look to increase our surgical capacity in the days ahead."

She said their current waitlist sits at just over 12,000 surgical cases.

Workers at community colleges across the province were involved in the strike too. Those classes will resume Tuesday.