In the last few weeks, the hang-ups have focused on exactly how to compensate for past work and benefits lost.

"It was really, really hard. A lot of really smart people worked really hard. The pattern of casual employment is so variable," said University General Counsel Anne Taylor.

Partially because of the University's highly decentralized record-keeping systems and the intrinsic variability of casual employment, the actual number-crunching was a Herculean job.

Staff members from the union and the University both devoted months of time to try to figure out the scope of the problem. At one point, a Microsoft Excel file included 70,000 lines.

"I think in the beginning, [HUCTW Director] Bill [Jaeger] thought we were being peevish. Then we gave them the data, and they were blown away," Taylor said.

Yet the work is far from over. As far as the financial ramifications, the University in many ways signed a blank check. Taylor and Jaeger could only estimate that the total money to be paid out was in the millions.

"We have reached this agreement and signed it and we still don't know how much it's going to cost us," Taylor says.