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The CUPE strike, like the Co-op refinery lockout, was fought partly over pensions. But pensions were hardly the only issue. Huculak, who was at the bargaining table, recalls how Ready pushed the two sides to limit the negotiations to what really mattered.

“He wanted us to pare the issues down to something manageable,” said Huculak.

Ready began by meeting with both sides separately to do precisely that. That launched a 43-hour bargaining round at a downtown Ramada hotel that ended the six-and-a-half-day strike.

They got a deal providing for wage increases and pension improvements. At the time, CUPE’s chief negotiator called it “one of the best deals in Canada.”

“His reputation is well deserved,” Huculak said of Ready. “I think, if the parties are serious about the issues and there’s a willingness to get to a deal, Vince will suss it out.”

Photo by Matt Smith / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

Ready came back to Regina in 2002 to help avert a strike at the Ipsco steel mill.

Dennis Carrigan was there toward the later stages of bargaining, as recording secretary of United Steelworkers of America Local 5890. He recalls that pensions were again among the major issues.

“The negotiations were long, protracted, and then, all of a sudden, we weren’t going anywhere and took a strike vote,” he said.

The result gave the bargaining team an overwhelming mandate to strike if necessary. Carrigan remembers that, at one point, workers were minutes away from actually walking off the job.

“It wasn’t going too well at all,” Carrigan said.