UAW members celebrating
Lonnie Everett. UAW International Servicing Representative for Region 9, posted a statement on the UAW Local 2300’s website:
UAW 2300 Brothers and Sisters,
What an incredible journey! Your unwavering solidarity and unity have led us to this historic moment. With 77% of you voting YES, we ve secured a $43 million contract over 4 years, bringing 21%-25.4% raises with COLA protection. This is a monumental victory, proving that when we come together, we are unstoppable.
The tentative agreement has been ratified, and the strike is officially over. Please report to your regular shifts starting [Monday] as of 10 pm.
A super-majority of the Union voted in favor of a pay increase along with a limited cost of living adjustment (COLA) protection for the next 4 years. The UAW represents approximately 1,200 out of the 8,382 Ithaca campus non-academic staff. The skilled trade workers are represented by a different union, and the majority of Cornell’s staff are not unionized. The collective bargaining agreement with the Cornell trades expires on June 30, 2026. Cornell posts copies of all of its collective bargaining agreements, and the UAW settlement does not automatically reopen the other agreements.
Prior to the new UAW agreement, employees who were hired before 1997 were paid on a different wage scale than employees hired after that date. This agreement abolishes those tiers but provides for a series of transition payments to the employees impacted by combining the wage scales.
The agreement does not affect fringe benefits and health insurance (which are set for both unionized and non-union employees under common plans.)
The UAW claims that the final result represents a $6 million ($5,000 per worker) increase in economic benefits compared with Cornell’s pre-strike offers. However, no one will ever know what increase the workers would have received if the UAW had opened negotiations before the Cornell Trustees had finalized the 2024-25 budget, tuition and meal plan prices in March 2024.
The workers were not paid by Cornell during their strike. Neither side released an estimate of the income lost by strikers over the two weeks.
Because workers do not explain their votes, it is not clear whether the 23% who voted to disapprove the settlement wanted to hold out for more concessions or disapproved of the UAW’s adversarial negotiating process.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, President Kotlikoff said:
The new contract goes into effect immediately, ending the strike. As we work over the coming days to reintegrate our UAW-represented employees into the workforce, we ask that everyone act with kindness and respect one another’s personal choices, whether that was to strike or to continue working.
The Statler Hotel has reopened its reservation system, and the Cornell Dairy Bar reopened at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
