Syracuse University and one of its largest unions have reached a tentative agreement for a new contract, according to a university official and the union’s secretary.
The tentative agreement comes just days before SEIU Local 200United and the university’s temporary contract expires on Sept. 6. Union members are set to vote on the contract Friday.
Local 200United represents library workers, JMA Wireless Stadium staff, food service workers and facilities workers. More than one hundred workers, students, staff and faculty rallied Aug. 26 for the contract to include higher wages.
Workers wanted the university to increase wages to keep up with the rising cost of living. This is the first time since 2019 the university and Local 200United had to negotiate a contract.
The contract includes a 10% first-year raise with raises of 3%, 2.75% and 3% in each subsequent year, said SEIU Local 200United secretary Adema King. That equates to a 19.9% raise over the length of the four-year contract.
The 10% first-year raise was a sticking point for workers, who threatened to strike at the rally. At the time, United Auto Workers-represented workers at Cornell University were in the middle of a 15-day strike that eventually ended on Sept. 2. Union members at Cornell ratified a contract that would earn them record raises from the university.
The entire bargaining committee supported and endorsed the contract, King said.
“We feel it’s a big win, absolutely. It’s a much better deal than what we were getting before,” King said.
The 10% raise is the highest the union has seen in decades, according to union representatives.
King said workers’ biggest priority was a pay increase.
According to King, the contract also maintains stipends from the previous contract. Earlier in the bargaining process, union representatives said that the university had tried to decrease or omit these stipends in order to meet the union’s desired 10% raise.
read more of central current’s coverage
Sean Kirst: Fifty years ago, Gregg Allman asked a Syracuse band to support his surprise show at a high school assembly
On Oct. 20, 1976, students at Buffalo’s Canisius High School were called to an assembly involving “acoustical science.” Instead of a lecture, Allman and Cher were there, as well as a Syracuse band called “Freeze.”
She’s lived her life as an American. ICE considers her an ‘alien’
President Donald Trump’s hunt for supposed widespread voter fraud has failed to yield evidence, but it has succeeded in upturning Syracuse resident Marva Cook’s life.
Onondaga County to hire engineering firm doing work for Genesee County as it pursues STAMP data center
The county will pay $431,595 to CPL Team to study “best practices” for building a data center. The Planning Department said the study is “agnostic” on building one.
Abundance, precarity, and the artist’s field of research
Katie Mulligan’s No Man’s Land: Reimagining the Myth of Cicero Swamp celebrates a vital ecosystem facing a new threat.
New York progressives have a plan to achieve energy affordability: make power public
Central New Yorkers have long struggled with National Grid’s rates. Progressives across the state are pitching public ownership of power.
