Campus operations staff at Cornell University went on strike Monday, just as students were scheduled to begin arriving on the Ivy League campus in Ithaca, N.Y., according to Syracuse.com.
The nearly 1,200 custodians, groundskeepers, dining hall staff and others—represented by United Auto Workers Local 2300—argue their wages have declined while Cornell’s endowment and tuition revenue have both increased. Over the past four years, the school’s endowment increased 39 percent, to nearly $10 billion, and tuition went up 13 percent; at the same time, workers’ buying power fell 5 percent, according to the union.
“We’re the heart, soul and backbone of Cornell. Students and faculty depend on us to make the campus run, but we haven’t seen pay raises that keep up. In fact, we’re falling behind,” UAW Local 2300 President Christine Johnson said in a statement. “We’re united and ready to join the stand up movement if we need to so we can get our fair share.”
According to the student-run Cornell Daily Sun, the university has established a contingency plan to ensure essential services remain available. Reduced dining hours and other offerings will be communicated “on a rolling basis as these impacts may vary day to day,” vice president and chief human resources officer Christine Lovely told the paper.
