Plush new digs for incoming frosh will cost Colony Hotel workers their jobs.

At a Feb. 14 meeting, U of T’s Governing Council (GC) approved the purchase of the Colony Hotel for use as a residence. Outside the meeting, several dozen students and workers marched in protest, concerned that the U of T’s purchase would mean the loss of jobs for 250 men and women employed at the Colony.

Part-time student and governor Chris Ramsaroop said the deal amounted to “basically taking workers jobs. [The worker’s] own children may be denied access to education because their parents can’t afford it.”

Vice-president human resources Angela Hildyard said, “We anticipate that we will be able to retain some of the staff at the Colony.”

Administrators would not make any estimates of how many staff will be retained, saying that number would become available in the next two weeks.

The workers are members of the Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees (HERE) Union Local 75. The university will now acquire this union. Hildyard said this is the third union that U of T has acquired in the past six weeks. “We hope we will have a very productive relationship with our new union,” said Hildyard.

Union rep Michelle Duncan addressed GC while the meeting was still in camera (closed to non-members). The union released a transcript of her address to the media. Duncan told GC: “Most of our members are women, newcomers to Canada and people of colour. They have struggled to come to Canada and continue in their struggle once in Canada to stake out an existence for themselves and their family.”

Duncan said many workers feared re-employment would be very difficult. She noted that “the workers had just gone through a tough fight in order to secure a new fair collective agreement.”

The new residence will allow the university to meet their housing guarantee obligations for first year students, said vice-provost students David Farrar. The residence will house students from the faculties of nursing, physical and health education, music, a mixture of arts and sciences colleges, and international students. It will house approximately 1,000 students.

Farrar said the new residence is a “fabulous opportunity.”

“Arts and sciences students are now going to be in an environment where they have a much broader experience, a much richer background of students to deal with,” said Farrar.

Students criticized the lack of involvement of both students and workers in this decision. Ramsaroop said, “While specifics of the financing of the project could have been held in confidence, the discussions with the workers could have been an open process. They should have been at least told about their welfare.”

Farrar said student consultations would now be critical to the structure of the new residence.

“There will be tremendous student input into [the residence structure],” Farrar assured. “The actual acquisition of the building was a real estate transaction,” he added.

Lydiard noted, “Real estate transactions at the university are always dealt with in a confidential way because they are business transactions.”

The hotel-turned-residence, which includes a revolving restaurant, music rooms, a gym, a pool and a prayer space will be more expensive than the average residence, “but within the range of fees we now have,” said Farrar.

The residence is fully accessible, except for the revolving restaurant.

U of T’s housing troubles are not new. Increased participation rates in the university have been driving demand for residence up for years, with the double cohort acting as a “minor blip on our radar screen,” according to Farrar.

Critics of the provincial government have consistently demanded more affordable housing in Ontario. Some say the housing crisis at U of T is a reflection of that problem.

“U of T has to take a strong role in demanding more affordable housing units in our province,” said Ramsaroop.

Although the Colony will help house first-year students, waiting lists remain long for family housing, part-time students and graduate students.Ramsaroop criticized the acquisition: “Part-time students cannot take part in this project; they are still excluded. This is a bad deal for part-time students.”