With these words in June, President Michael Kotlikoff announced what he called “financial austerity” at Cornell: “We must immediately address our significant financial shortfalls by reducing costs and enacting permanent change to our operational model.” 

Let’s be clear: financial austerity is a political choice. It is a choice that chooses to abandon the working-class students who keep this campus running.

As student dining workers at Cornell, we have watched our working conditions deteriorate in real time. The rubber shoe covers that once protected us from burns around the kitchen have been replaced with flimsy ones that fall apart halfway through shifts and become slipping hazards themselves. Students who signed up for the Early Work program — an annual program in which Cornell Dining employs student workers before the semester begins in exchange for bonuses paid in bonus Big Red Bucks, a complimentary meal plan and a waived early move-in fee — were left waiting through weeks of hiring delays and shift assignment failures from Cornell Dining. As a result, they were unable to fulfill the program’s requirements, which demand 12 additional shifts and perfect attendance standing before any bonus is actually paid out. We are asked to operate machinery that we have not been trained to use, stationed in understaffed dining halls where we work hard to pick up the slack, all while Cornell’s $11.8 billion endowment earned a 12.3% return in the past fiscal year.

Austerity is not a financial necessity. It is a choice.

Cornell’s administration claims it faces “profound financial challenges,” citing the........

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