Editor's note: On Tuesday, July 1,
members of Local 2300 of the United Auto Workers, which represents
approximately 1,100 service and maintenance workers
at Cornell, rejected the new, four-year contract that had been the focus of
intense bargaining between the university and the UAW bargaining team. The previous 
three-year pact expired at midnight on June 30, and union
members currently are working without a contract.
After the failure of the union membership to accept the proposed contract, Mary George Opperman, associate vice president for human resources at Cornell, issued the following statement:
"I sincerely regret today's action by the union membership. The final offer put forth by the university was a solid package that offered substantial financial increments for existing members and responded to the union bargaining team's expressed concern for entry-level wages.
"For the past three months, we have bargained in good faith with the union's new leadership. Wherever possible, we have sought to find common ground with the union's bargaining team. The structure of the university's final wage offer reflected the union's priorities and was our best possible offer in the face of constrained revenues, particularly external governmental support and student tuition. The new increments in the proposed four-year package were substantially more generous than those contained in the current contract, and we believe the union bargaining team would have been proud of its adoption. As it was, the union's bargaining team was split on the recommendation for ratification.
"Because the final offer was arrived at close to midnight last evening, we believe the union's members may not have had sufficient time prior to the vote today to digest the details of the contract and understand completely what their gains would have been.
"In light of the fact that the university's offer reflected in very large measure the principal priorities presented to us by the union's bargaining team, we need to hear from them their analysis of the opposition. Once the union's leadership has had a chance to sort things through, we will be prepared to discuss the appropriate next steps. However, there should be no misunderstanding that if the bargaining team wishes to sweeten any provision of the proposed contract, offsetting savings will have to be identified. Nothing has changed with respect to the dollars available to pay for the contract."
Highlights of the Cornell contract offer