The 125 CN Rail workers in Kamloops who had been on strike since last Tuesday will return to work at 6 a.m. tomorrow.

That’s after Teamsters Canada and CN Rail reached a tentative deal to renew the collective agreement for over 3,000 conductors, trainpersons and yard workers.

Kamloops local union president Chris Parkins of the Teamsters Division 855 says workers will return to work in what CN calls an emergency setup.

“A lot of our guys are pretty happy but at this point, we just sit back and wait for the actual memorandum of agreement to come out, the tentative one,” he told NL News.

“It could take months depending on the whole process from beginning to end, including the vote, but we should technically have the tentative agreement in our hands within a week here.”

Parkins says members in Kamloops were prepared to be on the picket line for the long haul, if needed.

“We were ready to hold out as long as it took for our negotiating committee to actually come out with something that worked well for us, and apparently it sounds like they have, and we’re pretty excited to hear what the outcome might be right now,” he noted.

And he says he is pleased that the Federal Government held back, and allowed the Teamsters Union and CN Rail to negotiate in good faith.