After weeks of negotiations, United Auto Workers Union members voted last Sunday to ratify their new contract with Cornell University. Although workers have walked away with historic wage increases, Cornell has once again shown itself for what it is — a corporate plutocracy willing to go to any length to preserve its bottom line.
For most of us on campus, our understanding of the UAW strike comes courtesy of Cornell’s public relations team, who worked tirelessly to keep students and parents alike informed and up to date on the disruption caused by those troublemaking agitators out on the picket line.
From touting their 17 percent raise offer to flaunting their request for a mediator, Cornell would have you believe that the UAW — a separate, outside entity, of course — had gotten greedy and uncooperative, refusing one generous offer after another.
But Cornell’s bad faith negotiating didn’t just stop at a few misleading mass emails. Ever resourceful, Kotlikoff’s administration turned its rhetoric inwards, shamelessly shifting the burden onto its mid-level employees, student workers and retirees alike. Faced with the demand for a living wage, Cornell instead threw up its hands and asked others to pick up the slack.
Our administration asked us to view this change as a community endeavor necessary to maintain our campus operations, ensuring the well-being of its students during a time of labor shortage. Cornell – and its mercenary human resources team – would have you believe that they are simply too strapped for cash, that the UAW was extorting our destitute administration at the expense of students and the community. They even tried to coerce us to be strikebreakers ourselves, to replace the workers who are withholding their labor — their only means of power in negotiations — to fight for better terms.
Yet despite Cornell administration’s best efforts to convince us otherwise, what our workers asked for was not greedy, nor unfeasible. Under the last agreement, Cornell workers made an average of $22 an hour, and in some cases, as low as $19.17. That comes out to a little less than $36,000 annually.
The “historic” 17 percent raise Cornell initially touted actually translated to a paltry three percent raise per year — which was still lower than the cost of living in Ithaca for a single worker with no children.
What our workers are requesting is less than an additional one percent of the money Cornell sets aside each year for salaries. In fact, last year, Cornell’s operating budget boasted a surplus of a little over $39 million; substantially more than the UAW asked for. Yet, Cornell’s Vice President and Chief HR Officer Christine Lovely initially claimed a salary increase would come from students’ tuition. This isn’t exactly a blatant lie — our administration would much rather reach into our pockets than take from their own.
But these negotiations were never about what Cornell could afford — it was always about what Cornell could get away with.
Our University has preyed on the assumption that most students know little about labor negotiations. Too little to recognize that requesting a mediator this late in the game is a miserly stalling tactic, that a 17 percent compounded raise isn’t generous and that pressuring other employees to perform union labor is not an attempt to keep operations functioning, it’s an unscrupulous bid to break a strike.
Of course, for those of us familiar with Cornell’s administration, this callous greed is par for the course. By pressuring other employees to work longer hours and take on additional duties, the University created an inhospitable work environment and allowed its students to suffer in the meantime.
But the most insidious tactic Cornell employed was simply waiting, counting on the fact that its striking workers couldn’t afford to hold out for long. This wasn’t just a strategy; it was a deliberate gamble on the poverty they impose upon their workers. Cornell never wanted to reach a fair deal — it was always about protecting its profit margins.
The University capitulated only because they couldn’t continue to operate without the workers they were so willing to starve. The administration’s willingness to exploit the economic vulnerability of its employees was not an accidental byproduct of fruitless negotiations, it’s simply the same old Cornell: sacrificing the people it’s supposed to serve so that our Presidents and Provosts can afford their multi-million dollar home renovations.
From hiking tuition to underfunding the TCAT, Cornell has once again proven that its loyalty lies with its profits. Our University has demonstrated that it has the resources to do right by its workers — if only it had the will.
Sophia Arnold is a third year student in the Brooks School of Public Policy. Her fortnightly column Under Scrutiny focuses broadly on political and campus issues. She can be reached at [email protected].
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