FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toronto, ON – The union representing Ontario college faculty and support staff, OPSEU/SEFPO, is calling for immediate intervention by the province after Conestoga College issued nearly 400 lay-off notices last week.
“We’ve just lost over 20 percent of our experienced, full-time faculty right before the holidays – and the chilling reality is that college leadership is restructuring the workforce to push precarity,” says Leopold Koff, President of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 237, representing faculty at Conestoga College. “It’s inhumane, it’s union-busting, and we aren’t willing to tolerate this any longer.”
Koff cautions that full-time workloads will be pushed onto contract faculty, who have far less in terms of job security or protections.
The faculty union has announced its intentions to hold a vote of non-confidence in college leadership in the new year. On Thursday, faculty held an in-person town hall in Waterloo where members expressed heartbreak and frustration in equal measure.
“We had one member on the lay-off list stand up and tell us she was born three weeks before John Tibbits was appointed college president – in 1987,” added Koff. “And look where his decades of leadership have gotten us: disgracing the college and the community, then callously upending hundreds of lives without the decency to deliver the news himself.”
The news of 181 full-time faculty lay-offs across Conestoga College campuses was followed by the announced elimination of an additional 197 support staff positions.
“They delivered the news to laid-off support staff, including myself, in a virtual meeting where Tibbits was notably absent,” said Vikki Poirier, OPSEU/SEFPO Local 238 President, representing support staff. “To not have the college president attend and convey that message to his employees is cowardly.”
“We couldn’t speak or turn our cameras on,” added Poirier. “And we certainly couldn’t ask questions about the $121 million surplus the college posted this year, or their millions in real estate holdings.”
President John Tibbits received a 29 per cent salary raise in 2024, raising his annual earnings to $636,102 – ranking 41st on Ontario’s 377,000 person Sunshine List. The college quietly submitted its 2024/2025 financials just hours before the provincial deadline in August – a first-time delay, say Koff and Poirier.
Under Tibbit’s tenure, the college’s 4 vice presidents and 8 directors in 2014 grew to 14 vice presidents and 77 directors by 2019 – more vice presidents than the University of Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier University combined.
“With that kind of financial picture and managerial growth, this isn’t a simple case of ‘right-sizing,’” said Poirier. “This is a deliberate move to ensure we foot the bill alongside students for management’s fiscal irresponsibility and lack of transparency.”
“John Tibbits broke trust with the college community and violated every social contract governing ethical student recruitment,” said JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO. “The fact that he has not been removed from his post reflects poorly on Ontario’s international reputation.”
“We can start making repairs on the international stage by making different, better choices — now,” added Hornick. “It’s up to us to unapologetically put forward that vision of what our communities need colleges to be.”