Eight months into negotiations, campus employees of the Service Employees International Union Local 73 may be taking the first step toward a strike. 

Members of SEIU, an organization that represents about 800 food and building service employees in the University, petitioned for a strike authorization Thursday. Voting will take place Jan. 24 and 25, said Ricky Baldwin, SEIU Local 73 chief negotiator.

“We’ve tried to compromise as much as we could to reach an agreement that we feel would be mutually beneficial to the workers as well as to management at the University,” he said. “But unfortunately, the University doesn’t seem willing to budge on the most important issues.”

Some of those issues include a requirement that employees begin participating in the campus wage program, which the provost uses to determine annual flat rate pay increases adjusted for inflation.

University spokeswoman Robin Kaler said the majority of campus employees’ salaries are set by the program.

“It’s what we feel is appropriate with what resources the University has available,” she said.

Baldwin and other members of the bargaining team have taken issue with the program because the percentage increases vary annually and could cause members to lose money, he said.

Last year, campus wage program raises were about 2.5 percent and about 3 percent in 2011. Baldwin said in the two years prior, campus wages did not increase.

“Three years ago, the campus wage (raise) was zero, and inflation was not zero. So everyone who was on the campus wage program … lost money,” Baldwin said. “What we’re saying to the University is that we cannot afford to lose any more money.”

The University is also insisting on having mail messengers work on holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, he said.

“What we’re saying is that if they would like to have the benefits that the campus offers, then they should move from being prevailing wage employees to also using the campus wage program,” Kaler said.

SEIU members are also considering striking because of a few unfair labor practice charges, one of which Baldwin sees as going against the previous contract negotiated two years ago.

The University had made a committment to no longer outsource campus work, Baldwin said, however, the University has violated that policy about 35 times.

“Those are our jobs that should be filled by our folk, so this is a huge issue for our people,” he said. “We were prepared to strike over it two years ago when we received all these assurances that it wouldn’t happen again.”

However, these incidents have been a result of miscommunications, Kaler said, and the chancellor has asked the University to reserve those jobs for the building and services division.

“Occasionally, there are units that, for whatever reason, maybe don’t know about the directive, and when we learn of those, then we have a process for having those units come back in line with the policy,” she said.

The SEIU negotiating team and the University will continue to work toward a solution, Baldwin said.

“The mood that we’re hearing from people definitely makes it sound like they’re going to vote yes,” he said. “But we continue to negotiate with the University in the hopes of reaching an agreement, and we have a federal mediator that we called in to help, but we have to prepare for the worst.”

Between now and the upcoming strike authorization vote, SEIU plans to hold several demonstrations, including one Wednesday outside the University’s Physical Plant Services Building, 1501 S. Oak St.

Austin can be reached at [email protected].