The Toronto Zoo does not appear set to reopen any time soon, after contract talks between striking zoo staff and management of the city-owned attraction broke down.

CUPE Local 1600 and the zoo’s management were pointing fingers at each other Saturday for the failure to reach a deal that would reopen the 5,000-animal showcase.

Local 1600, representing more than 400 zoo staff who walked off the job May 11, met with city negotiators for about a half-hour Saturday morning.

The zoo rejected an offer the union tabled Friday. It would have maintained a guarantee that the zoo keep a minimum 150 full-time permanent staff but relinquish job-security protections — from being laid off if their job was contracted out — for staff with less than four years’ service.

Local 1600 president Christine McKenzie said the zoo demanded “a two-tiered plan that would strip some (job-security) rights away from future generations of zoo employees.”

“We told them emphatically we are not interested in a two-tier system that will basically kick that can down the road in terms of problems we’ve been citing — the city wanting leverage to downsize the zoo, downsize our workforce.

“We are continuing with our strike and we have told the employer they can end this any time, but not at expense of our zoo or the people who have dedicated their lives to it.”

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The zoo, an internationally known research-and-breeding facility as well as a public attraction, has 186 permanent full-time staff and more than 170 seasonal employees. Those on strike include veterinary technicians, zookeepers and maintenance workers.

Zoo management countered Saturday that its proposal would have maintained job-security provisions for current employees, while new hires would get the protection from contracting out only after they reached 11 years of service.

“The Zoo operates with the benefit of what, in 2016, was a $12 million annual operating subsidy from the City of Toronto,” a zoo spokesperson, Jennifer Tracey, said in a statement.

“Given that level of financial subsidy and the job security language that is provided to the City of Toronto’s own employees (CUPE Locals 416 and 79), and those of the Toronto Public Library, zoo management believes that its proposals related to job security, are entirely fair and reasonable.

“The union appears intent on continuing this job action despite the city’s proposal to continue the present level of job security for all existing employees.”

The zoo offer does not seek a rollback of staff’s “generous” benefits and wages, she added.

It will now be up to a provincially appointed mediator, who has been aiding negotiations, to try to get the two sides back to the bargaining table.

The zoo board of management giving direction to negotiators is deeply divided, a meeting at city hall revealed Friday.

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The board voted 6-3 to make the offer tabled Saturday, prompting dissenting members including Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker to accuse board colleagues of “waging war” on zoo staff.

“We should be supporting them, we shouldn’t be attacking them, we shouldn’t be weakening them, we shouldn’t be trying to eliminate their (job) security, we shouldn’t be trying to downsize,” De Baeremaeker said after the Friday meeting.

This article has been updated from a previous version.