The union representing over 200 trades, maintenance and service workers at the University of Guelph says there could be a strike by the middle of March.

After several days of collective bargaining with the university, the negotiating team of Local 1334 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees asked the Ministry of Labour to issue a ‘no board’ report, said a CUPE news release Wednesday morning.

The “no board” report, expected to be issued later Wednesday, will set into motion a deadline by which a strike or lockout could take place, the release said.

Once the report is issued, the two sides will meet with the assistance of a provincially appointed mediator before the strike/lockout deadline, it said. The earliest possible service disruption would be 17 days from the date the report is issued, which will fall in mid-March.

“Filing the ‘no board’ was necessary to ensure progress continues to be made within an established, reasonable time frame,” Janice Folk-Dawson, president of CUPE Local 1334, said in the release.

The CUPE workers’ main areas of concern are the contracting out of their work as well as maintaining good jobs and job security into the future, it said.

Although the University of Guelph has been listed as one of the top-10 employers in the country, according to Forbes Magazine in 2016, the campus has seen a marked reduction in the degree of cleanliness and general maintenance due to reductions in staffing, the release said.

During the recent conciliation period, CUPE 1334 provided numerous viable alternatives to the contracting out, it said.