Guest Review: “Unionizing the Ivory Tower” by Al Davidoff
This article was written by Amira Shimin, a student-docent in the Exhibit Hall.
The unionization and the fight for a living wage for Cornell workers spanned over a decade and involved thousands of workers, their relentless dedication and work, countless hours, allies, and strategies. In Al Davidoff’s, Unionizing the Ivory Tower, he details this process through all its steps. Davidoff, who started as a student at Cornell in its school of Industrial and Labor Relations became a custodian to help unionize the Cornell workforce and went on to become the union’s first president.
The book maps the journey of unionization from the earliest efforts to winning the vote to negotiating the first contract to maintaining that contract and to continuing to demand more. Davidoff highlights the difficult battle in winning and maintaining a union. It seems as if after every major win, there is only more to fight for. That in its essence is organizing. The battle is never over.
Davidoff describes the variety of strategies employed by UAW 2300 in their fight for better wages and working conditions. The strategies are unique, adaptable, and persistent. The UAW’s success was in part largely due to the fact that the union hit Cornell in every way they could. Davidoff writes about rallying an originally unsupportive workforce in supporting the first ever arbitration hearing and winning, of building allies in the community by electing a supporter of the union to become Ithaca’s mayor and getting a supporter of the union on the board of trustees. He writes about clever tactics like instructing dining hall workers, who were trying to get a stipend for non-slip safety shoes, to bring their stinky shoes to a collective bargaining meeting to disturb management. The UAW 2300 were relentless. Davidoff writes about the time they mass organized to direct all freshman students moving in, to a parking lot where union members would give a speech about how Cornell did not pay them a liveable wage and informing the incoming students and their family’s about the union’s fight.
One of the most important tenets of this book was solidarity. It was solidarity that won over countless times and it was solidarity that created the union, that kept it expanding, that ensured that the union would continue to win and gain power. The examples of solidarity are moving. From getting a primarily white racist membership base to vote to go forward with the first arbitration of the union, an arbitration that involved a black worker, to getting a more than substantial strike fund from workers across all other departments when only dining workers were on strike, to singing solidarity forever as members awaited the union vote.
The central message of the book is hope and that is what Davidoff ends by urging his readers to have. He emphasizes the importance of class solidarity in fighting racism, division, and bigotry. He notes the current disillusionment with the white working class that has turned against their own interests and turned towards racism and bigotry. But, Davdidoff urges the reader to reconsider. He emphasizes the importance of solidarity in fighting this racism and division. He brings up the UAW at Cornell, a largely white conservative membership that was able to rally in support of progressive ideas countless times. While the right wing relies on despair and powerlessness to gain support, labor should focus on hope and power, Davidoff argues. To effectively combat division, unions need to cultivate knowledge about workers' circumstances, foster agency to alleviate feelings of powerlessness, build community to create empathy, and achieve regular victories that boost the confidence and hope of workers.
The UAW 2300 is not just a part of Cornell’s history, it's part of Ithaca’s. The start and the development of the union at Cornell represents a central part of Ithaca's history and demonstrates how far community can be in enacting change and how community building can create power that can change the lives of the working class.
As of May 29th, there are just 4 copies left available at The History Center in Tompkins County
