Officials with the TTC spent much of the weekend in talks with union negotiators in an effort to keep its 8,000 employees from walking off the job.

While the union was in official strike position as of 12:01 a.m. Monday, talks continued past the deadline and the union had agreed not to walk out immediately.

A media blackout was imposed on the negotiations between management and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents the city's bus, subway and streetcar drivers and fare collectors, as they tried to work out a new collective agreement.

Details of the agreement were not expected to be available until the union had held a membership meeting, next Sunday, April 14. But according to a report in the Toronto Sun, the agreement will give more than transit workers a 9% raise over three years.

Union members were expected to vote on the contract on Wednesday, April 17.

The agreement spared Toronto residents the disruption of seeking alternate means of transportation this week. Almost 700,000 people use the system every weekday.

Sources say the proposed deal does adjust benefits but does not change the TTC's overall cost of providing them to workers.

TTC drivers currently earn $22.25 an hour after three years on the job.

The TTC initially had offered a three-year deal with a 1.25% wage hike in the first year and 1.5% in each of the following years, the Sun reported, while the union wanted an increase of 5% annually for three years.