Thread by @AngelaVCarter

Dear colleagues in #cdnpse #onpse: some thoughts on the decimation of Laurentian University & what it means for the future of #highered. A thread, even with a few bad joke attempts.💔 1

#FundLU #HumansofLU #SaveLaurentian #OnPoli #cdnpoli

The story: LU filed for creditor protection in Feb, via the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act—CCAA. Doing it this way bypasses annoying collective agreements.🤯 Decisions about massive restructuring are instead made by judges & a court-appointed monitor, here Ernst & Young. 2

The fallout: yesterday 110 faculty members terminated; 60 programs axed, mostly in Arts. But most PSE jobs are staff. The impact on Sudbury and the northern Ontario region is hard to calculate. LU provided essential services & training; it was a foundation of the local economy. 3

HR did terminations by group Zoom calls, in batches. It felt like a firing line. Get it? 🙃 The rep read a script: due to CCAA, “difficult decisions” were made. She then told a screen of blank black boxes that their jobs were terminated. Take the day off with your families. 4

Severance? Nada. Terminated faculty need to make an *individual* claim to the creditors. But no funds(?) were set aside for this. And faculty have no priority... so get in line and we’ll see what’s left? In the meantime, apply for EI. 5

Thankfully there are supports to help terminated faculty “move forward”! Job coaches will work w/ them for 3 months to find a new job. LHH's site indicates that key in this will be updating LinkedIn accounts. 🤣 I have found the secret to finding an academic job in 2021! 🤣 6

The thinking I hear around the “big 15” group of “top” universities 🙄 in Canada is that what happened to LU doesn’t matter. But this is a global trend. Universities are being gutted by governments, often conservative, that are making good on the pandemic disruption. 7

What happened this week has re-shaped #onpse & #cdnpse. LU is the canary in the coal mine. Contacts at the Gov of ON say there's "a list" of others to be dealt with in a similar way. Same for the rest of Canada. Here it comes.... 8

Dear @CAUT_ACPPU & @OCUFA. We need an explanation of what your response has been to all this. Did it work? No, it didn’t. So what are you doing to help now? And what are you going to do differently next time? 9

Less talk. More political action. We need right now: 1) Emergency federal $$ to universities; 2) Bankruptcy reform to protect public institutions from predatory prov governments; 3) Public universal PSE. 10
@JustinTrudeau @theJagmeetSingh @yfblanchet @AnnamiePaul

Colleagues, tell your fac assoc and elected officials to focus on what matters ⬆️ And then sign the @OFLabour petition. Be well out there, folks. -fin-

https://twitter.com/OFLabour/status/1381692588365873152?s=20