And our team is just back from the house of culture where the joint unions abruptly finished a four-and-a-half-hour negotiator with the government team just after 6:00.
What came out of it? We spoke to the President of the PSU Gerald Henry:
Gerald Henry - President, PSU "The meeting was cordial again and we possibly have to go back to membership and explain to them the contents of the minister's letter and then we get a new mandate from them, so that's about it."
Reporter "How did you manage to have a cordial meeting going into this meeting with such tension?"
Gerald Henry "It has always been cordial, so it's just discussions basically."
Reporter "Sir but the leaders are very upset with the PM's statement last night that he went ahead and pre-empted the meeting without even giving you guys a chance to review the letter."
Gerald Henry "Well, we got an apology for that and that's the nature of these things, sometimes someone may jump the gun, sometimes we do it as well, we try not to it's just the way things are. We apologise when we realize we make mistakes."
Reporter "By when do you get back to the government on accepting the proposal?"
Gerald Henry "Well, it depends on what membership will tell us tonight and hopefully sometime maybe tomorrow or so we could talk to the government side and let know what is the position of the union."
Reporter "No other meeting scheduled?"
Gerald Henry "No date as yet."
Reporter "Will the strikes continue even though after tomorrow they will dock pay?"
Gerald Henry "That will be depending on what membership tells us and we see where we go from there."
Reporter "We heard a clear no from protestors today."
Gerald Henry "Like I said now we still have to present to membership, they are saying no but we have been able to present to them as yet because simply what they said just a while ago the PM jumped the gun a little bit with presenting to the media his letter. The membership still hasn't been updated quite as yet."
The unions have reportedly planned another demonstration for tomorrow.
