Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Layoffs
Again the Blade has noted the possibility of significant layoffs. This time it is over at the hospital. So, I ask again, "If the enrollment is up, what's causing the layoffs?" "What money did we have before that we do not have now?" "How many jobs could be saved by retracting bonuses?" "What are we funding now that we did not fund one year or two years ago" I believe those who are about to lose their jobs deserve an answer.
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4 comments:
I'm fairly certain the layoffs are actually happening as I received an email about it yesterday.
"Dear Colleagues:
As you are well aware, our nation and in particular our region, is suffering through a serious economic recession. Unfortunately, these tough times have had a direct effect on the health-care delivery system across our country and within our region. The University of Toledo Medical Center, consistent with our mission and core values, is doing its part to help those in need of health care. However, the same market forces are also requiring us, and other hospitals, to make some hard choices.
After much review and discussion, today UTMC began layoffs of a significant number of employees in order to reduce operating expenses and focus on health care. This decision was not easy, however given the ongoing economic situation we must continue to find ways to achieve more with fewer resources. These friends and colleagues deserve our gratitude for making UTMC a better place to work and learn, and for having helped improve the human condition. We will do everything we can to treat them fairly during this unfortunate transition. It is our hope to have many if not all rejoin our family when conditions permit.
These changes will certainly be difficult, however our goals and objectives must remain firm, and our commitment to our patients must not waver.
Be assured that staffing will be maintained at levels required to provide university-quality care while we continue to grow in many areas of in-patient and out-patient care. We are confident that with your support and cooperation, we will continue our clinical operations without any disruption. Your continued efforts on behalf of our patients and our students are very much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Lloyd A. Jacobs, M.D.
President
Jeffrey Gold, M.D.
Health Science Campus Provost
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs
Dean, College of Medicine"
It's nice of him to notice that our nation is in economic recession, I guess he noticed that his fat fist fulls of dollars were getting smaller.
Not his fist fulls, but the piles that he is grabbing them from.
If this were the 1960s or 1970s, people would be responding very differently to what is going on. Our university seems to be a microcosm of what has been happening to our nation on a larger scale. The rich become richer and even more powerful, while the poor become poorer and more marginalized. Bonuses for executives and CEOS go up, while wages and even jobs dissappear from the bottom. Like Eleanor Roosevelt said about the greedy men of her day, "Take from the bottom, add to the top!" When will it ever end?
One problem with that argument, anonymous, is that the economy has hit the middle class. The poor becoming poorer isn't astonishing. The president got rid of furloughs to layoff friends and co-workers. I'm sure administrative family members will be fine.
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