Dear Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White,
As the founders of Cornell University, you aspired to create an institution where “any person can find instruction in any study.” This noble vision shaped a university that has long stood as a beacon of higher education, innovation and public service. Yet, today, we write to you with a heavy heart, for the University you founded has strayed from its guiding principles.
The hypocrisy of Cornell University’s current leadership is glaring. While proudly proclaiming a mission to educate “any person,” the institution fails to provide a living wage for those who perform the essential tasks that keep the University running. How can the children of staff members, who themselves face food and housing insecurity, be expected to succeed in their studies? How can they focus on learning when their families struggle with the most basic of needs?
It is a sad paradox that, even in the wealthiest nation in human history, we live in a state of scarcity. This scarcity is not born of necessity but of a system driven by corporate greed and the insatiable demands of the billionaire class. As they amass ever more wealth, working people are left struggling to afford even the basic necessities for a decent life. This disparity is not just an economic failure but a moral one, and it’s a failure that institutions like Cornell should be actively working to rectify, not perpetuate.
It is particularly troubling to witness this failure in a university with an endowment exceeding ten billion dollars and tuition fees surpassing $60,000 per year. There’s little doubt that Cornell has the funds to sign a record contract with its union staff, yet it refuses to do so out of fear of being out of step with other institutions. This reasoning is unworthy of a university that prides itself on its leadership. If Cornell truly aspires to lead in science, technology and beyond, then it must recognize that leadership in these fields is meaningless if it does not also seek to improve society. The University could do more for the public good, right here and now, by ensuring that its staff are paid fair wages — wages that allow them to live with dignity and afford homes in the community they serve.
What has become of the institution you founded? It seems that Cornell has transformed from a center of learning dedicated to the greater good into yet another billionaire corporation, filled with highly paid administrators whose task is to keep low-wage employees working for as little as possible. In some cases, these wages are so low that people working full-time jobs at Cornell qualify for state benefits like food stamps and Medicaid. In this way the University effectively outsources the cost of supporting these workers to the taxpayers. This is truly shameful behavior from an institution that enjoys tax-exempt status and, as such, does not contribute its fair share to the local communities it relies upon.
We must express our profound disappointment in Cornell for its failure to reach a fair contract with its unionized staff. How can a University that claims to be “the preeminent educational institution in the world focused on work, employment, and labor” fail so spectacularly when it comes to bargaining with its own workers? Is this what they consider “improving the lives of workers and transforming the future of work”? To sit for days on end, week after week, in unproductive foot-dragging?
Rather than negotiating in good faith, Cornell sent a committee of highly paid lawyers, negotiators and administrators — many, no doubt, with salaries pushing six-figures — to stonewall the UAW bargaining team. This team, made up of everyday workers from dining, building care and other departments, came to negotiate a contract that would lift the lowest-paid employees on campus out of poverty. The University’s failure to negotiate now leaves the union no alternative but to strike, heaping more economic distress on those least able to endure it.
We sincerely hope Cornell can return to the table with an offer that will end the years of stagnant wages, provide a true example of how to collaborate with labor to find solutions to difficult economic problems, and restore dignity to the essential work these people perform.
Cornell University must step up and sign a fair contract with its unionized employees. Doing so would not only restore the institution’s reputation as a force for the greater good, but it would reaffirm the values upon which it was founded. Mr. Cornell, Mr. White — if you were here today, we believe you would stand with us, demanding justice and dignity for all who contribute to the success of this great university.
In Solidarity,
Concerned Cornell UAW Staff
Nick Polato is a recovering academic with a Ph.D. in Ecology and a former baker. He is currently a Gardener with the Cornell Botanic Gardens and a striking UAW member. He can be reached at [email protected].