In a column March 26, Globe and Mail advice columnist Susan Pinker turns to Wesley Cragg, who teaches business ethics at York University’s Schulich School of Business, to respond to a travel agent who’s lost her job – and loyal clients who had followed her from a previous job. Pinker says she is free to contact her clients to tell them she’s moved. Cragg advises “a transparent termination agreement. This would not only be a respectful way of terminating an employer/employee relationship, it also would be good business.”
Air Canada bailout ‘a mistake’
Transport Minister David Collenette has destroyed Air Canada’s best chance of returning to financial viability by opening the door to a taxpayer bailout of the struggling airline, says York University business professor and industry expert Fred Lazar, reports the Toronto Star March 26. “Collenette has basically told all the creditors and the unions, ‘Don’t worry. You don’t have to make concessions. You don’t have to negotiate. Worse comes to worst and we’ll be there if necessary to bail everybody out.’ It’s tied the hands of [chief executive] Robert Milton to do the restructuring necessary to make the airline viable going forward and that will just perpetuate the problems.” He was referring to Air Canada’s announcement to cut 3,600 jobs.
Kudos to York
Marty Lockshin, director of York University’s Centre for Jewish Studies, writes a letter to The Jewish Tribune March 13: “The assumption that anyone or any group at York can invite any controversial speaker and expect the university to foot the whole bill for security is specious, especially in these days of underfunded universities. Instead of chastising York, I think it would be appropriate if the Tribune would give kudos to President Lorna Marsden and the other senior administrators who stood up for the principles of freedom of speech and worked very hard on their own time to make it possible for Daniel Pipes to address his audience.”
On air
- Erich Weingartner, research fellow with the York Centre for International & Security Studies, analyzes mounting concerns facing North Korea given the current US war with Iraq and the effect on relations with South Korea, during CBC’s special coverage March 24 of the war with hosts Michael Enright and Bernard St. Laurent.
- CBC’s “Here and Now” featured music by Glenda Rush Kalzado, a 1985 York University graduate in fine arts.