Cornell Workers Strike for the First Time in Decades

As students moved into campus, Cornell University’s 1,200 dining, custodial, and maintenance workers in Ithaca, New York, walked off the job August 18.

“When you’re not getting paid a living wage in a place that certainly has the money to pay, it feels disrespectful,” said Josh Dexter, a cook. “It can burn out the flame for people.”

The university emailed professors, administrative staff, and retirees, urging them to pick up scab shifts. Students reported a hectic start of classes and terrible dining hall food.

Cornell also brought in scabs from temporary work agencies like Stafkings and Express Employment. Even Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff was spotted working the dining halls.

After 10 days on strike, Cornell and United Auto Workers Local 2300 came to a tentative agreement the night of August 27. The union says the deal secures a cost-of-living adjustment, an end to tiers, longevity bonuses, and a wage increase of 21 to 25.4 percent over four years.

Members will vote to approve or reject it September 1 and 2. Meanwhile, they're staying on strike until an agreement is approved.

‘I'VE NEVER SEEN BARGAINING SO SLOW’

An average Cornell worker makes $22 an hour. Workers say their low pay pushes them out of Ithaca to find affordable housing, forcing them to drive to campus and pay expensive parking fees.

To make ends meet, Cornell workers pick up second jobs, and some have even applied for Section 8 housing. Meanwhile, tuition revenue increased 13 percent over four years, and Cornell’s endowment has fattened to $10 billion.

Members of UAW Local 2300 have worked under an expired contract since July 1. Cornell hasn’t budged on meeting their demands, and negotiations have stalled.

“I've never seen bargaining so slow,” said Daniel Vicente, UAW Region 9 director. “In some of the sessions, the university’s team will come in, they’ll pass one singular issue, and then they’ll leave the room and won't come back for four, five, six hours.”

Local 2300 filed unfair labor practice charges against the university for refusing to bargain in good faith and retaliating against workers.

This is the union’s first strike in decades. Maintenance workers struck throughout the 1980s, but since the last strike in 1987, these militant years gave way to a culture of concessions as Cornell imposed tiered-wages.

EDUCATION COMMITTEE

This time rank-and-file members and union leaders came to negotiations prepared to fight for a better contract. The first step was ending backroom deals. Local 2300 rejected ground rules that restricted the bargaining team from communicating with the rest of their co-workers—previously a standard practice throughout the UAW.

The union started an education committee this spring to reach members. Workers set out to talk to all 1,000 of their co-workers, spread across the vast 2,000-acre campus. To track everyone down, workers mapped the university to find where all the time clocks were stationed.

Mapping helped the education committee expand bargaining surveys beyond emails to increase participation. Paper surveys and one-on-one conversations helped them reassess union demands.

One key issue that came out of these conversations was expanding health and personal time. Cornell has strict categories of time off for Local 2300 members that effectively prevent workers from using all of their time off.

“Other employees don’t have all these different categories,” said Stephanie Heslop, a dining worker and member of the education committee. “They just have a pool that they can use, so we incorporated that into our proposals.”

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In the tentative agreement, the union says it has won increased flexibility with health and personal time.

SEVERED FINGERS

“When I first started, this was a job we all wanted,” said Jair Porras, a cook who has worked for Cornell for a decade. “But I started to notice anomalies. Cornell would demand more out of us, they’d ask us to do extra work.”

Five years ago, Cornell began asking dining staff to work catering events. Managers pressured workers to work outside of their pay grade.

“I’ve heard an infinite amount of stories of dishwashers being asked to cook when it’s short-staffed,” said Porras. Managers would say ‘Hey, give these burgers a flip.’ Workers would respond, ‘No. That’s out-of-grade. That’s a dollar more.’”

During one bargaining session, facilities mechanic Chris Bush shared a picture of himself inside his office holding an umbrella. Dark and muddy water filled the middle of the room. These were working conditions at one of America’s premier Ivy League schools.

Even more shocking, last year an industrial disposal grinder cut off parts of a worker’s fingers in Morrison Dining Hall, which feeds 2,000 students a day. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, safety guards that would have prevented the accident were missing from the grinder.

OSHA also found Cornell guilty of failing to properly train workers on safety procedures, and fined it around $32,000—less than half the $90,000 it costs to attend Cornell for one year.

A month after the first incident, a worker’s hand was amputated by the dish machine in Morrison Dining Hall. This second incident is not reported on the OSHA website. Though multiple workers told me about it, they said management has pushed for secrecy about the gruesome accidents.

An anonymous worker recalled the incidents: “That was shocking to me. When a different co-worker had their hand cut off by the dish machine, that was like, holy shit. What is going on here?”

Cornell did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

STUDENTS SUPPORT THE STRIKE

The university threatened to take away benefits, like free housing and meal plans, from student workers who are a part of their early work program.

That hasn’t stopped students from supporting the strike. Cornell’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America has created infographics detailing student workers’ right to not cross a picket line.

“When the strike began at 10 p.m., I immediately stopped and walked out,” said Luke O’Brien, a member of YDSA and student worker at Taverna Banfi, a restaurant inside the Statler Hotel, which is part of Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration.

YDSA has been directing student workers to alternative employment, food, and legal access. YDSA has also created a campus-wide petition supporting the strike, which 1,100 community members have signed. 130 student workers have pledged to not cross the picket line.

‘THE FUTURE IS OURS’

The strikers say they’re unified in a way that they haven’t been in decades, and feeling a new commitment to their union.

The picket line is “a new experience,” Porras said. “When you’re out there among everyone, it feels like we’re fighting for a future. When we say, ‘Who are we? We are the union!’ you feel supported seeing everyone, the multitude of people with the same goal—that the future is ours.”

José Roque Pérez-Zetune is an intern at Labor Notes. He is a graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.