Given the financial state of our University, and
Given that our revenue comes from tuition and tax-payers, and
Given recent and on-going lay-offs of critical SMU staff,
SMUFU felt compelled to understand the spending in greater detail. Accordingly, we have filed FOIPOP information access requests relevant to several areas of spending, including expenses related to PR firms, legal fees, and lobbying fees.
The employer has delayed fulfilling our requests until the date of legal deadlines and has not provided the documents requested, but rather "summary breakdowns" of numbers, with very little specific detail. Further, the employer has threatened that once SMUFU is in receipt of information, it must remain confidential, citing an article in our Collective Agreement (4.5). We did not request this information under Article 4.5, however. We requested it under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We consulted CAUT legal, who have informed us that we can disclose the information we’ve obtained. Why would SMU's General Counsel threaten us with action if we were to share what has been disclosed?
Because it looks bad.
Commentaires