Following rejection of a 17.5 percent wage increase extended over four years and an immediate 10 percent rise, custodial and dining staff workers at Cornell University have commenced a strike.  Represented by the United Auto Workers Union, Local 2300, is intent on winning concessions from the University.  Although the School endowment has attained $10 billion, administrators are restrained by contracts to use the fund for financial aid, new facilities, maintenance and upgrades and academic programs.

The University has implemented programs to maintain campus activities as the fall term has commenced.  The negotiations will continue to restore services and to finalize a mutually acceptable contract.

Labor in service, transport and utility sectors has become more militant in their activities and demands reflecting living costs and conscious of a disparity between wages earned by manual workers and salaries paid to management. It would seem illogical that a university with a world-class Institute of Labor Relations and a first-ranked business school should end up with a  strike by non-academic employees.

Still on a nostalgic note I have some sympathy for the institutional workers despite busing my tray at Willard-Straight and never having my graduate student office cleaned by a University janitor from 1965 through 1968!