‘Inhumane’: Local union heads respond to lay-offs at Conestoga College
Posted Dec 24, 2025 06:58:40 AM.
Last Updated Dec 24, 2025 06:58:44 AM.
While many are beginning to get comfortable and enjoy time with their families this holiday season, the spirits aren’t as high for faculty and support staff at Conestoga College, still reeling after nearly 400 lay-off notices were handed out last week.
Various union heads with the college are now pushing for immediate intervention, requesting the province take action after 181 full-time faculty members and 197 support staff positions were handed their notices before the holidays.
“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,” said 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.”
Faculty members are said to have held an in-person town hall on Thursday, Dec. 18, where they were given the opportunity to voice their concerns and frustration with the round of layoffs.
“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. “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.”
Among those voices is Vikki Poirier, President of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 238, who represents local support staff members, saying there’s a good amount she personally has issue with, not only in regards to the layoffs themself, but more so with how the news was given.
“I’m on that lay-off list, and they delivered the news to us in a virtual meeting where we couldn’t speak, even turn our cameras on,” Poirier stated. “We certainly couldn’t ask questions about the $121 million surplus the college posted this year, or their millions in real estate holdings.”
It all came following a turbulent year for the local college, including a support staff strike that stretched for more than a month as the school year began in September.
Many of the concerns around the round of layoffs centre around the college’s finances, particularly for the college’s President, John Tibbits. Last year, Tibbits received a raise of approximately 29 per cent, raising his annual salary to $636,102, according to Ontario’s Sunshine List.
That would place him as the 41st highest paid when compared to the total 377,000-person list.
“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.”
Those members are now urging the provincial government to take action, requesting that steps be taken to remedy the moves that have been made by the college.
“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.”
570 NewsRadio has reached out to Conestoga College for comment on the ongoing round of layoffs.
