‘We’re done playing around’: Labor unrest continues at Cornell University

For the first time in decades, Cornell University workers have gone on strike just as students move in for the 2024-2024 academic year.

Maintenance and facilities workers, dining workers, gardeners, custodians, and agriculture and horticulture workers went on strike, as reported by The Hill, after talks for a new contract broke down.

“Workers at Cornell are fed up with being exploited and used. The university would much rather hoard its wealth and power than pay its workers fairly,” United Auto Workers Local 2300 President Christine Johnson said of the strike. “Cornell could have settled this weeks ago. Instead, they’ve scoffed and laughed at us and broken federal law. We’re done playing around.”

Johnson apologized that the strike would interrupt move-in days for new students at Cornell, but the university is not willing to pay workers a living wage. Cornell said the best deal has been offered to workers.

“We further enhanced our offer [Saturday] to trigger, for the first time in a Cornell union negotiation, a cost of living (COLA) adjustment, in addition to the general wage increase, that protects all members of the bargaining unit from high future inflation,” Christine Lovely, vice president and chief human resources officer at Cornell, wrote in a statement.

UAW employees were offered a 17.5 percent increase in wages in the next four years of the contract and stronger health and personal leave.

According to UAW leaders, the offer will not provide a living wage.

“Over the past four years, Cornell’s endowment has soared 39 percent to nearly $10 billion and tuition has increased 13 percent — all while workers’ buying power has fallen 5 percent,” Johnson said. “Many of the workers have had to move out of Ithaca to afford housing and must pay expensive parking fees to park on campus.” Cornell workers earn less than $22 per hour, a wage lower than the estimated cost of living for a family in Ithaca.

The living wage for an American adult with children is nearly $25 per hour, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study. The wage necessary is $43 if an individual with a child lives in Ithaca.

New York politicians back the UAW with public statements and are walking picket lines with workers.

“I stand with the UAW Local 2300 in bargaining for good wages and a fair contract. Unions are the backbone of American labor. We are building a city where everyone, any background, any vocation, can live and thrive. As Mayor I will always support workers’ rights, living wages, and a square deal,” Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo said in a statement to The Hill.