The underlying struggles of losing a job
Many people are aware of the retirement of four student services that occurred after the University of Ottawa Students’ Union (UOSU) responded to a reduction in membership fees. In June, UOSU announced the closures of the Multi-Faith Centre, Foot Patrol, the Bilingualism Centre and the Peer Help Centre. However, the mass layoffs of staff that occurred alongside these service cuts is less common knowledge.
The layoffs started at the beginning of July and lasted two weeks, with 20 people – including employees of the retired services – losing their jobs. The affected staff were notified by their work emails three weeks before the layoffs were to take effect.
The employees affected by the layoffs were given the option to work until the day of notice or leave three weeks ahead with their salaries (on the day they received the notice). This left affected employees, many of whom were full time workers with families, scrambling to find a new job while simultaneously tying up loose ends with their old job.
After the layoffs, a mass email was sent to UOSU staff members on July 20, informing them of the changes made to the organization and assuring them that laid off workers would be offered a fair package as per the collective agreement with Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). UOSU also confirmed that the aforementioned services would be permanently retired, and recommended the use of the Health and Wellness Centre to stressed workers.
While committees and boards supervising the now-cut services were consulted before their closure was made, service employees were not aware of the decision prior to the email — because no workers sat on those boards.
In addition to the dissolution of all positions within the retired services, the position of communications supervisor in most equity services, such as the Feminist Resource Centre and the Pride Centre, was discontinued. As a result, this reduced the staffing in those offices to three people working 15 to 20 hours per week, depending on their position. This comes at a time when there is an increased demand and lower supply for services provided by offices like the Feminist Resource Centre and the Food Bank.
UOSU’s recent decision to limit graduate student access to their services — including the Food Bank and the Students’ Rights Centre — after a breakdown in negotiations between them and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSAÉD) exemplifies this issue.
UOSU wrote a statement, claiming that GSAED did not meet deadlines for financial agreements. This necessitated UOSU to make the decision to limit graduate student access to services provided for undergraduate students.
Joseph Eastham, the financial and administrative coordinator of Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) Ottawa, remarked,“[The Food Bank and the Student Rights Centre] were meant to help graduates with legal cases and those struggling in food insecurity positions.”
Despite these services being funded by undergraduate student levies, Eastham states, “for me, these are the biggest issues and access to resources is key. It doesn’t seem as though UOSU is concerned at all with graduate students, or the fact that a lot of their members may become graduate students at the end of the day.”
Ultimately, regardless of the initial intent or who the fault lies with, it is evident that graduate students are bearing the brunt of the burden and being denied access to services that make their lives easier.
Moreover, the absence of the retired services is already being felt around the U of O community. This 101 Week, students who frequented Foot Patrol told the Fulcrum that they felt less safe walking home and running errands in the evenings. Similarly, informing students and university alumni who have previously used or volunteered with the services about their shutdowns has also been difficult; the Fulcrum was informed that one alumni broke down upon hearing the news of the Peer Help Centre’s closure.
While the rationale behind the decision — an 11.37 per cent reduction in the maximum membership fee of UOSU — is largely understood, employees feel that more transparency and compassion should have gone into the handling of the situation.
Interim president of CUPE 4943, Elita Uch, stated “I don’t really see as much compassion as I would have hoped … I’m not denying that [UOSU] probably had compassion or anything like that, … I’m just saying there should have been more compassion. There should have been a better way to go around this.”
CUPE has had three grievance meetings with UOSU as an employer since the layoffs took place. The initial meeting happened later than would have been ideal, due to the layoffs occurring over the summer.
So far, all laid off employees have been given the option to be put on the recall list: a system where former and current internal employees of UOSU who are not working have priority hiring if they are qualified for the open positions within the organization.
UOSU also opened up new positions for an events and campaigns supervisor as well as a student rights advocate, amongst others. However, to be eligible for consideration for some positions, applicants have to be registered students at the University of Ottawa; thus, this allowance has little impact on full-time workers who make up a large amount of the people affected by the mass layoffs.
Most new coordinators had to figure out work themselves, due to a lack of transition reports and a proper transitional structure. Now, there are more sessions to walk employees through those steps. However, some former employees find it unfortunate that the retired services were not given the opportunity to reform and were shut down instead.
Readjusting to the new dynamics has not been easy. UOSU also employs international students and the sudden layoffs left the affected international students panicking; a loss in primary income affects one’s ability to pay tuition, which in turn affects immigration status. International students have to be enrolled full-time or risk losing their study permits. Other employees with different situations had to deal with other personal crises as a result of the loss of their primary income.
The overload of emotions from these anxious people fell on CUPE. “It took such a negative toll on my mental health. I dealt with severe burnout for several months … members are obviously very frustrated, right? How else are they gonna communicate? … There’s an overload of information.” said Uch.
“There’s an overload of emotions … that greatly impacted, in such a negative way, some of our members. They were also going through personal struggles while navigating the layoffs.”
In a statement to the Fulcrum, the UOSU leadership stated that it is “confident these decisions were determined and delivered with the utmost of care and parity”. They acknowledge that while difficult, they believe these changes will best serve students and the campus community.
“In the fall of 2023, students voted to adopt a reduction of around 10% of UOSU fees, translating into a $500,000 budget cut. This significant budget shortfall along with increased needs in areas like the Food Bank forced us to make difficult decisions, informed by student feedback and usage data of services, and considering redundancies,” continued the statement.
“Those included the closure of four services, for which alternative planning has been or will be developed, internal restructuring, and layoffs. Due to the confidential and sensitive nature of human relations matters and to protect the confidentiality of those affected by layoffs, we will not be commenting more specifically.”
Readjustment, however, has not been the smoothest — some people have been able to find new jobs, some people have not. UOSU hiring and on-boarding in mid-August when the university was preparing for 101 Week did not make the process any smoother for people who ended up getting new jobs within the organization. Regardless, everyone is trying their best to adapt to the new situations they find themselves in.
