The Dominica Public Service Union (DPSU) Friday described as ‘unfortunate” the decision by the US-owned Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM) to send home more than 100 employees following the devastation caused by the passage of Hurricane Maria last September.
RUSM, which was founded in 1978, has its main campus located in Portsmouth, north of here with separate administrative bases in Iselin, New Jersey and Miramar, Florida in the United States. It is owned by Adtalem Global Education Inc., formerly DeVry Education Group.
The university has started the process of laying off at least 150 employees with hundreds of its students and staff being relocated temporarily to the United States.
DPSU general secretary, Thomas Letang, said the union met with the employees and a redundancy package had been negotiated.
“Since we moved to Ross University there are a lot of benefits we were able to get for the members, things like pension and gratuity…which will form part of the package that they will be receiving.
“We have indicated to Ross University that as soon as they will resume operations in Dominica we would be happy if they would give priority to the employees who were displaced by that decision and we are working on that,” Letang said, adding that the workers have also raised other concerns.
Letang said that the union intends to write to the Dominica government regarding the situation at the university.
Last month, RUSM wrote to staff informing them of the situation following the hurricane that caused widespread damage in Dominica on September 18.
“We will no longer be able to continue to employ our entire Dominican Campus as we have since Hurricane Maria,” RUSM Dean Dr. William .F. Owen Jr. wrote promising that the university would maintain what he described as a “core staff” in Dominica.
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All of this is going on in addition to the devastation of the recent storm and Dominica is busy using government resources to have carnival this year. There are so many other pressing issues to deal with and places to spend money other than on revelry.
Now why would I even want to assist financially when the people do not see it fit to deny themselves their wants and focus on their needs?
Perhaps in THEIR eyes, revelry is a way for them to shake off the stress affiliated with the after effects of the storms.
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