DULUTH — Service workers at the University of Minnesota are preparing to go on strike following the rejection of the school’s latest labor contract.

Including nearly 170 employees on the University of Minnesota Duluth campus, members of Teamsters Local 320, which represents janitorial, maintenance and food service workers, are expected to halt work as part of the system-wide strike.

“If we have to strike, we will,” said Grady Johnson, a union steward and gardener at the Twin Cities campus. “We want a fair contract, and we're very close. I still think, I hope, this can be resolved, and we can go back to our day-to-day being at the university.”

The workers' strike will begin at 10 p.m. Monday on the Crookston and Morris campuses and expand to Duluth and satellite campuses early Tuesday mo

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