Carleton University unions are sounding the alarm about the institution’s financial priorities.
Members from several Carleton unions met to discuss the university’s budget, financial challenges and its potential impacts at a Dec. 12 town hall meeting.
The event was hosted by Campus United, a collective of Carleton unions, with representatives from:
- The Carleton University Academic Staff Association (CUASA), representing full-time faculty and professional librarians;
- CUPE 2424, representing administrative, technical and library staff;
- CUPE 4600, representing teaching assistants and contract instructors;
- PSAC local 77000, representing postdoctoral fellows.
Campus United hosted the town hall to have a “frank discussion” about the university’s budget and spending choices, said moderator and CUPE 4600 member Codie Fortin Lalonde.
“While we sympathize with the compounding financial blows … settling a deficit on the backs of workers is not a smart or creative solution,” she said.
Carleton University’s financial deficit could reach $38 million this year — a $12-million increase from the $26-million projections made in May 2024. The university publicly addressed its increasing financial deficit on Nov. 8 and announced employee retirement incentives on Nov. 20 as its first public step toward addressing the deficit.
At the town hall, union representatives raised concerns about a lack of transparency and communication from the university, the financial deficit’s impacts on the Carleton community and the university’s financial choices.
In a Jan. 10 email statement to the Charlatan, university media relations officer Steven Reid said Carleton “does not have comment to offer” on the town hall as university officials were not present.
The statement reiterated that “significant measures” are necessary to address the university’s financial deficit.
“There is no one solution to address the financial challenges that we face,” the statement reads. The university continues to work towards implementing its Financial Sustainability Framework to improve its financial sustainability, the statement added.
The university’s statement did not respond to specific questions detailing campus unions’ concerns about transparency, potential impacts on employees or the university’s spending decision-making.
Concerns about lack of transparency, communication
Representatives from all four participating unions said the university has lacked transparency and communication about its financial deficit and the potential impacts on employees.
“One of the biggest challenges is that the university came out with this statement about their so-called financial crisis, but without any context, without any plans for the future,” said CUPE 2424 president Jerrett Clark.
The lack of communication “creates a culture of anxiety” within the Carleton community, he said.
“We’ve been told that there are no immediate plans for widespread layoffs, but whether that’s an eventual possibility, we don’t know,” Clark said.
CUASA president Dominique Marshall said her union was not consulted about the university’s Voluntary Retirement Incentive Program, which will provide monetary payouts to eligible employees who choose to retire early. The program was offered to 300 of CUASA’s 1,000 members.
“Doing that without asking the union … we are also very upset about this,” she said.
Because of the lack of transparency, CUASA filed a freedom of information request to access information about the university’s financial situation and choices, Marshall said.
The university did not respond to specific questions about potential widespread layoffs or the lack of consultation before incentivizing retirement.
Esther Post, president of CUPE 4600, said her union has not received the same communications from the university as others.
“We have received virtually not a single email from the university about how the largest group of university workers on campus will be affected,” she said.
Post added that CUPE 4600 was not invited to communication sessions between the university and CUPE unions, did not receive emails sent to other campus unions and the university did not respond to its requests for meetings.
Giuseppe Amatulli, a representative from PSAC 77000, also said his union did not receive any official communication from the university about how postdoctoral fellows will be affected by the university’s deficit.
“We are in a limbo,” he said.
The university did not respond to questions detailing Post and Amatulli’s concerns about a lack of communication.
Impacts on employees, students
The possible impacts of the university’s financial deficit and spending choices are “quite grave” for the Carleton community, Clark said.
Contract instructors (CIs) will be impacted especially hard, as some departments are aiming to reduce their employed CIs by more than 80 per cent, according to presentation materials shared at the meeting.
CUPE 4600 does not know if or how teaching assistants will be affected, Post said.
“It’s a really hard blow when some of us [CIs], like myself, have been teaching here for 20 years,” she said.
She said she expects an estimated 1,000 CIs to be out of work next year, accounting for around a third of the CUPE 4600 union.
The membership reduction will have a major impact on the existence of CUPE 4600, she said, especially as the union begins renegotiating its collective agreement with the university over the summer.
“It’s hard not to look at this like union busting,” she said.
The university did not respond to questions about the CI reduction or its potential impact on CUPE 4600’s labour relations with the university.
Facing potential job loss, Post said CIs are demoralized and concerned about financial precarity.
“The impact on our mental health, anxiety and particularly morale is immeasurable,” she said.
Clark said the lack of morale is also felt by professional staff, who are concerned about potential layoffs or having to take on the workload of their laid-off coworkers next year.
“People are already maxed out. They’re already overworked,” he said.
Marshall said it is more difficult for the university to lay off full-time faculty, so professors are concerned CI reductions will require them to take on more courses and larger class sizes.
“It means less time for teaching, mentoring and employing students, for community work,” she said.
The university did not respond to questions detailing union members’ concerns about negative mental health impacts or potential workload increases.
PSAC 77000 representative Amatulli said the university’s financial choices could also impact its ability to attract researchers and postdoctoral fellows.
The university has capped this year’s funding for postdoctoral fellows at $45,000, he said, but PSAC 77000’s collective agreement states that each of the union’s 107 members should receive $2,000 per year from the university. This amount would total $214,000 per year from the university.
“If the fund is $45,000, it is clear that the math doesn’t match,” Amatulli said.
The university did not respond to questions asking how it intends to honour its collective agreement with PSAC 77000.
Post said the largest impact of the university’s financial decisions “is actually going to be on students and the quality of education they’re being given.”
“Our working conditions are their learning conditions,” she said.
‘Irresponsible’ financial decisions
The university has pointed to several external factors as reasons for the deficit, including the domestic tuition freeze, stagnating enrollment numbers and a drop in international student enrollment due to the federal government’s international student cap. It has also pointed to the repeal of Ontario’s Bill 124, which caused the university to owe retro pay to employees whose wage increases were capped under the now-unconstitutional law.
At the town hall, union representatives said the lack of provincial funding, tuition freezes and other external factors are impactful, but the university’s internal financial decision-making is also to blame.
“There are [external] pressures and those are real,” Clark said. “But the way you spend money … that is something you can control and it can’t all come at the cost of people.”
In its Jan. 10 statement to the Charlatan, the university said students “can be confident that the university’s decision-making will continue to uphold our academic mission and prioritize the student experience.”
Marshall critiqued the university’s commitment to infrastructure plans despite the financial deficit.
“Planning was done in a time of plenty, but they stick to these projections,” she said.
On Oct. 10, the university approved a $40-million renovation to the Loeb Building as one part of its long-term plan to revamp its campus infrastructure.
Post said the university’s financial decision-making has been “irresponsible.”
“Virtually every single one of us will be impacted in some way because they’re choosing to spend money on parking garages and new buildings and new signs at the entrances,” Post said.
The university did not provide comment on the reasoning for its spending choices.
Post said making those investments instead of prioritizing students’ education and the work of academic and support staff is a bad look on the university.
“[It’s] quite disheartening, disappointing and appalling.”
Featured graphic by Alisha Velji.
