An essential services agreement between Saskatoon’s transit union and the city will not be reviewed.

A tribunal on Friday backed the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 615’s request to withdraw an application to review the essential services agreement. The city was aiming to block the withdrawal and keep the request for review pushing forward.

“We were here today, I guess, to find out whether we could or couldn’t withdraw our application without the city’s consent,” union president Jim Yakubowski said following the tribunal hearing.

The tribunal’s ruling determined the union’s withdrawal be accepted.

“We now know where we stand in terms of our essential services agreement,” Yakubowski said.

The union put forward a request months ago — following amendments in October of last year to Saskatchewan’s essential services law — to review the essential services agreement. But last week the union withdrew the request before issuing a 48-hour strike notice.

Essential services agreements outline what services need to be maintained in the event of job action.

The city claims the reason the union withdrew its request is because the essential services agreement allows the union to strike. A review of the agreement could have potentially changed which transit workers are essential, and thus affected the union’s strike plans.

Access Transit is the only Saskatoon Transit service currently deemed essential. All drivers and transit employees, except those with Access Transit, can strike.

The union’s strike notice last week said non-essential staff could have taken job action as early as last Sunday evening, but the deadline passed with buses still running. Yakubowski told CTV News the union was awaiting the tribunal’s ruling on essential services before considering a strike.

He now says the union will not be taking job action until at least this Sunday, after union members meet to discuss the city’s latest contract proposal.

The union’s negotiation team will not be recommending union members accept the offer, according to Yakubowski.

Transit workers have been without a contract for four years. In 2014, bus drivers were locked out by the city for about a month after contract talks failed.

Pension continues to be the highest point of contention between the two parties. The transit union is the only one of nine city unions yet to sign on to the city’s proposed pension plan, according to the city.

--- with files from CTV Saskatoon's Taylor Rattray