Union leaders say UWindsor budget town hall leaves more questions for members | CBC News

Two unions representing workers at the University of Windsor say Wednesday’s town hall meeting by senior leadership announcing massive budget deficits leave them with more questions than answers. 

University President Robert Gordon announced Wednesday the university was facing a $10-million shortfall in tuition this year and a $30-million deficit next year.

It came with a sober warning: No one is coming to help the university balance the budget, and tough decisions are ahead. The full impact of the budget crunch, including how many staff could be laid off, is still unknown. 

“While these budget challenges don’t define us, our work defines us. Our passions define us,” said Kristen Siapas, acting president of CUPE Local 1393, referencing remarks made by Gordon.

“If the impact of these budget challenges is going to be taking away our ability to contribute to the campus community in a meaningful way, doing the work that we came here to do, then there is a sense that we’re under attack.”

Siapas said that with this year’s budget deficit, eight jobs have been eliminated from among the members she represents and a bumping process is currently ongoing. While no one is losing their job directly, she estimates those eight jobs will impact the work of about 30 people. 

And to her members, she says the “do less with less” message from the administration rings hollow. 

“The challenge of doing less with less, you know, we’re certainly up to the challenge,” she said. “We’re innovative, we’re hard working, we’ll find a way, we’ll make it happen, we’ll work together. But it’s just what we’ve been doing this entire time.” 

The university has already made cuts to some programs over the last six months, including closing the University Players, the EPI entrepreneurship centre and a lab developing alternatives to some kinds of animal testing. 

In the town hall with staff and other senior leadership, Gordon said the expected deficit is due to compounding pressures from a domestic tuition freeze, international student cap and rising costs. While the university has reserve funding, it’s dedicated to one-time costs, and selling other assets isn’t a long-term solution, he said. 

It means layoffs, a hiring freeze and salary freezes for administration and non-union staff. 

Gordon also noted several union collective agreements with the university will need to be negotiated in 2025 and said the majority of the university’s operating budget is in salaries and benefits — that has another union president questioning the timing. 

“They’re negotiating with, I think, four unions in 2025,” said Pierre Boulos, president of the University of Windsor Faculty Association, which represents full- and part-time faculty as well as other education professionals, like librarians. 

“It’s interesting that usually when the university’s going into a bargaining year with various unions on campus, we hear things like this.”

He and Siapas both say the announcement is causing anxiety for their members. 

“We have a really precarious part of our membership, our sessional instructors,” Boulos said, noting they teach on contract.  “And we know that there are now less offerings of courses for them to teach and …the courses that they are getting are increasing in enrolment. 

“I’d ask, how do you square that with the statement in the presentation … about maintaining the student experience.”

Boulos also noted that a budget is a forecast that predicts what future finances could look like. 

“There’s a financial crisis. We get that. I think there’s also a leadership crisis,” he said. “We need leaders here who could help us get through to the other side of this feeling better and stronger, and doom and gloom messages aren’t helping that.”

The university said in a statement no one was available for an interview on Friday. 

In his town hall, Gordon noted that the university has, and will receive, some one-time funding from the province, but it has not resolved base budget shortfalls. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for Minister of Colleges and Universities Nolan Quinn said the province invested $1.3 billion in funding to “stabilize the sector.”

LISTEN: Employee losing job with closure of University Players discusses impact on local theatre scene

“That is on top of the more than $5 billion in operating funding we put into the sector every year,” the statement said. “We’ll continue to support our post-secondary sector for their continued success and sustainability — but we won’t put those costs on the backs of students and their families by raising tuition.”

Both Siapas and Boulos called on more communication from the university’s leadership as they navigate this time with their members. 

“We acknowledge that there are some outside pressures that are causing challenges for the university, for management, for senior leadership. But if they really want us to all be together, we need to see transparency and communication,” Siapas said.

“We need to feel like we are being supported and the more work that we can do to try and bring everyone together on the same page, the better.”