Eight weeks after they parted ways, London’s striking inside workers and city hall have a tentative deal.

The quick question, as a marathon week of mediated talks to break the stalemate ended Sunday, is whether city council and the union for the 750 workers will endorse the tentative contract agreement.

But even if the deal is OK’d, longer-term questions — about bottom-line and political costs — will swirl:

Did the city win the ability to schedule employees for weekend work, a key bone of contention in the impasse, and what price will city manager Art Zuidema pay if the push for that flexibility failed?

Did the union, whose members gave up about $9,000 each, based on a pay average city hall quotes, come away with a key victory for such a long strike, the first by inside workers since 1979?

How much of the estimated $1 million a week the city saved in wages did it pay out to managers to cover for the workers, who handle files ranging from welfare to traffic tickets and bylaw enforcement?

And then, the political question: Will Mayor Matt Brown and the rest of the city council, almost all rookies elected last fall, pay a political price for a strike that dragged on so long?

Sunday, neither Brown nor Shelley Navarroli, president of Local 101 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, representing the workers, could be reached for comment.

City hall spokesperson Rob Paynter couldn’t say when the deal will go to council for a vote, and that no details would be released until ratification votes are held.

In the strike fallout, one former city politician said his question is whether anyone comes away a winner. “I suspect everyone has lost on this,” said Gord Hume, a former controller and municipal affairs author.

“It’s been poor for the city and obviously the employees have lost two months wages that they’ll never get back,” he said.

It’s too early yet to tell the political ramifications of the strike, said Martin Horak, a city hall watcher and head of Western University’s local government studies program.

“If it turns out that the city has pulled out what looks (like) a good and fair deal for taxpayers, I think they’ll probably be forgiven for having taken awhile (to reach a deal),” he said.

To Horak, the key questions include how much the city got of what it was looking for, and why it took so long for the two sides to get back to the table in the final run-up to a deal.

“There have been questions about how the process has been managed from the political side,” he said.

The walkout began May 25, affecting a broad range of mostly soft city services but causing backlogs in critical areas such as applications for building permits and inspections.

The backlogs came at the height of summer construction season.

Service disruptions and reduced hours continue, all listed on the city’s website at london.ca

City politicians stayed largely quiet during the strike, despite calls by CUPE and others to apply political muscle to end the dispute. Instead, they made Brown — who said little — their spokesperson.

A news blackout during the final week of talks kept the negotiations under wraps.

Still, it became clear early on that wages weren’t the only issue.

A push by the city to schedule employees for weekend work, something they don’t do now, quickly became a flashpoint as the city looked to rewrite workplace hours that haven’t changed in decades.

That was enflamed when the city proposed adding part-time or temporary workers to the weekend mix.

“There were some pretty significant issues at the table that really strike at the heart of collective bargaining,” said Gina Barber, a former city controller and strong union advocate.

Barber said she’s relieved there’s a tentative settlement and was never convinced the city was serious about weekend work for inside workers, because “nowhere in their Service London plan did they indicate that they wanted to go in that direction.”

The issue of keeping city hall open up to seven days a week divided some outside observers, with some calling it a move to the flexibility a 24/7 economy has brought while others questioned the merit of adding counter hours when so many cities and businesses are pushing people, more cheaply, online instead.

While the final positions of both sides in the talks aren’t known, the union had sought a 7.5% raise over four years, nearly double city hall’s four-year offer of 4.1 per cent.

There were also divisions over job evaluation issues and benefits for early retirees.