A midnight deadline has come and gone as the city and the union representing outside municipal workers continue contract negotiations.

In an update shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday, CUPE Local 416 spokesperson Kevin Wilson confirmed to CP24 that both Local 416, which represents the city's outside workers, and Local 79, which represents the city’s inside workers, had received new offers from the city.

Details on what the offers contained were not provided but talks between the two sides remained active throughout the night as negotiators took no breaks from the bargaining session.

The update comes following the last full day of contract negotiations with municipal workers in the city before possible strikes or lockouts.

Earlier Thursday, Mayor John Tory said he urged negotiators on his side to press for a deal to be reached, saying he wanted to avoid a dramatic, last-minute settlement that kept residents waiting to know if their services were still intact.

“One of the tendencies that human nature can produce is that if you think you have a long period of time to deal with these kinds of things, you tend to take a long time to deal with them,” Tory told reporters Thursday morning. “I don’t think we can have uncertainty in the city about this.”

On Wednesday, CUPE Local 416 and Local 79 submitted separate but coordinated proposals that they claimed offered a “way forward” to achieve a negotiated settlement.

Details of the proposals were not released, however spokespeople for both unions said the proposals focused on a modest wage increase, job stability, gender equality and health and safety.

According to the city, CUPE Local 416 represents approximately 4,200 outside workers, including snowplow operators, paramedics, garbage collectors and parks staff. CUPE, however, said the number is closer to 6,000.

In the event of a work stoppage, paramedic services would not be impacted.

CUPE Local 79 represents more than 20,000 inside workers.

“We value them and we value their work which is why they receive benefits and job security that are among the very best in the province of Ontario,” Tory said Thursday, but that the city cannot afford to give out wage increases and keep the unions’ benefits arrangements the same.

He said benefit costs for members of both unions have risen by an average of four per cent per year in recent years.

Tory denied that the city was pursuing a “double standard” for CUPE workers in comparison to the police, who received an 8.35 per cent wage hike over four years in their 2015 agreement and gave up the perk of banking and cashing out sick leave for new hires.

“The pay increase given to the police, for the first time probably ever, the numbers for most of the years of that agreement had a one in front of them, this was a historic agreement.”

CUPE Local 79 President Tim Maguire said Thursday that while he believed a deal could be within reach, that negotiations should not be handcuffed to a hard deadline.

With the midnight deadline now come and gone, CUPE Local 416 is in a legal strike position, while the city is in a legal lockout position.

For workers represented by CUPE Local 79, a strike or lockout could begin Saturday.

"If that takes beyond today, if that takes beyond tomorrow, let’s find solutions that we can work on together," Maguire said of the negotiations earlier Thursday.

"Let’s not assign it to 12:01 a.m. tonight or 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning."

In terms of benefits, Maguire said he "respectfully disagrees" with the mayor's suggestion that the union needs to make concessions, adding that he believed the union and city can work together to find efficiencies in the benefit program.

"We had a number of proposals on the table which we saw as reasonable increases to some benefit costs because of inflation, etc. We’ve taken them off the table," he said.

"We are asking the city to meet us half way."

Maguire said the union will push back if the city attempts to use any tactics that would impose a contract on the union if a deal was not reached.