San Diego

Animal keepers, maintenance crews and customer service workers have voted to strike the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park if a dispute over pay raises is not resolved.

In a unanimous voice vote Thursday night, members of Teamsters Union Local No. 481 decided “to let management know that our employees are very dissatisfied about having gone for 2 1/2 years without a raise,” said Bill Martin, union president.

Management and union representatives had reached an impasse earlier in the day over whether revenues at the zoo and Wild Animal Park have improved enough since the contract went into effect in July, 1986, to reopen negotiations.

The workers agreed in the contract to a three-year wage freeze, but the contract also includes a provision requiring a reopening of salary negotiations should the zoo’s operating income rise 15% higher than operating expenses.

The union contends that the exhibit of two giant pandas from China last year, which drew 500,000 extra visitors, pushed revenues above the cutoff. But the zoo says revenues were higher by 7.5%.

That dispute will be submitted to binding arbitration within the next few months. If the arbitrator determines that wages should be renegotiated, the wage talks will begin and any strike would come only if those discussions deadlock, Martin said. The contract expires next July 1.

The union represents about 750 year-round employees at the zoo and animal park, a figure that rises to about 1,000 in the summer. Wages start at $4.25 an hour for seasonal workers and rise to about $12.50 an hour for the most senior animal keepers, Martin said.