OAN Staff Abril Elfi
11:40 AM – Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Over 1,200 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) at Cornell University have gone on strike on the first college move-in day.
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According to reports, workers participating in the strike include dining workers, custodians, facility workers, and maintenance workers.
UAW Local 2300 President Christine Johnson said in a statement that workers at the university “are fed up with being exploited and used.”
“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,” said Johnson. “Cornell could have settled this weeks ago. Instead, they’ve scoffed and laughed at us and broken federal law. We’re done playing around.”
“I am very, very sorry for this for the new students that are moving into Cornell University. We love the students. We want them to have a good experience, but the university does not want to pay us a living wage,” she added.
Soon after, the university responded to the strike in their own statement, claiming that they have already offered the best deal possible.
“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,” said Christine Lovely, vice president and chief human resources officer at Cornell.
Even though Cornell has offered workers a 17.5% increase in wages and stronger health and personal leaves, UAW workers have maintained that these offers still do not provide them the living wages that are necessary.
“Over the past four years, Cornell’s endowment has soared 39% to nearly $10 billion and tuition has increased 13% — all while workers’ buying power has fallen 5%,” Johnson added. “Many of the workers have had to move out of Ithaca to afford housing and must pay expensive parking fees to park on campus.”
Johnson also stated that the current wage for most Cornell workers represented by the union is less than $22 per hour, falling lower than the cost of living for a family.
According to a study by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a “living wage” in the state is around $25 for one adult without children and $43 for a person with a child.
The university then responded with another statement, saying that the vast majority of its endowment is restricted to specific purposes and that the university withdraws about $386 million per year from the fund, a withdrawal level regulated by New York state law.
“As we continue to make 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,” Lovely wrote in a statement.
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