The strike of West Virginia teachers and school service personnel ended Tuesday after the state senate finally agreed to a 5 percent pay raise. Although the pay raise had been announced a week previously in a deal reached by Governor Justice and the leaders of the teachers’ unions, state senate leadership proved to be the major roadblock to actually passing the bill.

The strike almost ended Saturday evening in a comedy of errors when the state senate voted to pass the wrong version of the bill, accidentally approving a 5 percent pay raise rather than the 4 percent leadership had intended to pass. Senate leaders then appeared to violate their own parliamentary rules to un-pass the bill, in a late-night session that one Democratic senator referred to as “chaotic and somewhat incompetent” and another as “a shitshow.” The senate ultimately passed a 4 percent pay raise, meaning that the bill would go to a conference committee. The conference committee was appointed late Saturday night but did not schedule its first meeting until late afternoon on Monday.

News of the senate’s vote, and their mishandling of the process, spread like wildfire on social media. On Monday, thousands of teachers and service personnel from around the state again descended on the capitol. People waited in security lines at the two public entrances to the capitol for hours and many were ultimately unable to get in, as capitol security closed the building to visitors at 1 PM.