Service and maintenance workers at Cornell University are striking as students return to campus.
The UAW union chapter at Cornell has been negotiating for a new contract with the university for months. They’re calling for higher wages, cost of living adjustments, and free parking for workers.
After a weekend of failed negotiations, the union announced the strike Sunday night on social media.
“The university has failed to present a fair package and has not bargained in good faith, stalling and retaliating against protected union activity by the workers,” the union’s statement said.
The statement included comments from UAW chapter president Christine Johnson, who argued that the university could have settled with the union and prevented a strike, but chose not to.
“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,” she said.
Johnson added that the university had “broken federal law.” The union filed unfair labor practice charges against Cornell to the National Labor Relations Board last month.
The union authorized a strike Thursday night, with 94% of voting members casting a ballot in favor of the move. In a prior interview, Johnson told WSKG that 95% of the union showed up to vote.
“It's a very strong message from our membership that they've had enough, they're struggling, and they understand that Cornell is not listening meaningfully,” she told WSKG on Friday.
In a statement released Monday morning, Cornell University's vice president and chief human resources officer, Christine Lovely, and interim Provost John Siliciano said the university “remains committed to bargaining in good faith.”
The union frequently references Cornell’s $10 billion endowment and the high salaries of university leadership.
Lovely and Siliciano said a majority of the endowment can only be used for purposes specified by donors and that $386 million had been pulled from the endowment for campus expenses last fiscal year.
They said that money would have otherwise come from tuition and housing fees.
“As we continue our efforts to make a Cornell education affordable to more students and families in New York state and across the country, we cannot simply raise tuition to unmanageable levels to cover the cost,” they wrote.
According to Cornell’s website, the estimated total annual cost of attendance for New York residents in “contract colleges” is nearly $70,000. Tuition makes up over half of those costs. Cornell has four contract colleges that receive direct funding from the state and have lower tuition rates for New York students.
Lovely and Siliciano wrote that the university was in “unprecedented territory” and would reassign staff to cover “critical services.”
The university’s statement concluded with a link to a voluntary staff reassignment form that asked for availability up to September 1.
Kelly Tracy, a Cornell food service worker, would normally be making coffee or lunch for students. Instead, she’s outside picketing in the rain.
“It kind of sucks that we're not there for our students. Because normally, we are all about them, but we had to strike today,” she said.
Tracy said the move is necessary to ensure workers make enough to live. Right now, she lives 45 minutes away from Cornell and rents out the bottom floor of her house to make ends meet.
She believes workers have reached a tipping point.
“You can feel everyone's pain. We just cannot live like this anymore,” Tracy said.
Austin Flowers was another worker on the picket line Monday.
He works as a cook at Cornell, but he’s currently on the hunt for a second job. He said higher wages would be life changing for his family.
“It would mean that daddy doesn't have to work a second job so that he can be there for his boys to raise them and not have to always be at work,” he said.
Flowers said when he started working at Cornell, he made enough to live comfortably. Now, as the cost of living in the area has risen alongside inflation, he said his wages have fallen behind.
“We used to be the middle class,” he said. “It's not that anymore.”
Flowers’ wife drives him to work so that he can avoid parking fees and tickets on campus. Parking passes can cost hundreds of dollars according to Cornell’s website.
Over 8,000 students are scheduled to return to the university this week.
This is a developing story and will be updated as we receive new information.
