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Like many of his colleagues, Robert Sawkew has spent the last five and a half months struggling to make ends meet.

Now, Sawkew — who has spent the last five years working as a baker at Saskatoon Co-op’s University Heights grocery store and the last five months on the picket line — says he is optimistic about the prospect of getting back to work.

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“Pretty positive,” Sawkew said of the mood on the picket line hours after it emerged that Saskatoon Co-op and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1400 had reached a tentative agreement to settle the labour dispute.

“When we found out yesterday that there was a tentative agreement, it was pretty positive. Before, we’d never had a tentative agreement to vote on. It was always an employer’s offer. This sounds like there was actual bargaining.”

The strike began Nov. 1 when around 900 UFCW Local 1400 employees, who have been without a contract since the end of 2016, voted down the co-operative’s final offer, which included a lower wage tier for new hires.