The United Campus Workers of Kentucky and Service Employees International Union rallied against the moves by UK to reorganize hundreds of jobs across a number of departments under the banner of a program called Integrate Blue.
While UK says the centralization effort will improve efficiency, campus workers worry their union protections, benefits, and other employment agreements could be impacted.
UK has said some of the employees in affected departments could become part of a different organizational structure or report to different supervisors, the integration will not result in job losses or impact pay or benefits.
Yet Joshua Borgemenke, a facilities supervisor at UK, said workers feel like they're being kept in the dark.
"While they're having these town hall meetings with us, our questions are going unanswered or they're basically hiding behind a (non-disclosure agreement) and saying we're not able to answer this right now, which is a little intimidating to us because we don't know what's going to happen moving forward," he told WUKY.
Even more questions swirl around the potential effects on new hires.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports a separate effort is also under way, which could see maintenance, custodial, and cafeteria workers placed under a yet-to-be chosen private company.