PORTLAND – It wasn’t the longest walkout they had encountered, but Verizon workers in Maine were relieved to get back to work nonetheless.

“Not knowing when it was going to end was the worst,” said Cherie Caton, 25, a directory assistance worker, during a break outside the building on Monday. “A lot of people [pay their bills] week by week. I know I do, at least.”

Many workers remembered a much longer strike over health benefits in 1989, when they had to find part-time jobs to help make ends meet for 17 weeks. But any strike brings uncertainty, no matter how long it lasts.

“It’s stressful because you don’t know if you’re going to be out for 17 weeks or not,” said Barbara Profenno, of Westbrook, a 27-year employee. “It’s hard because it’s out of our control, to a large degree.”

A majority of 87,000 striking employees, including 1,200 in Maine, began returning to work across the Northeast on Monday after Verizon reached a tentative agreement on a three-year contract with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and one of two bargaining units for the Communcations Workers of America.

The strike began over a number of issues including mandatory overtime and job security. The company agreed to limit mandatory overtime, and also put limits on jobs that could be moved from one geographic region to another.

The two sides also agreed that unions could organize workers in the company’s fast-growing wireless division.

Doris Gardner, a dispatch clerk, was glad to be back at work but saw the strike as necessary.

“If the issues are important enough and there’s no other way to work it out with the company, that’s the way it goes,” she said. “Two weeks is not that long, really.”

But it was long enough for Bonny Compton, an administrative assistant and a 15-year employee, to line up a part-time waitressing job just in case.

“I was here back in ’89,” she said. “You never know if that’s going to happen again or not.”