New Program in Ottawa For Laid Off Employees

By Mark Evans | Published: April 23, 2009

For employees laid off by Nortel in Ottawa, there’s a new initiative focused on helping these people launch new high-tech businesses.

Lead to Win is a free program sponsored by the City of Ottawa, Carleton University, The Talent First Network, Arrow Electronics and The Ottawa Chamber of Commerce. You can apply online at www.leadtowin.ca.

“Lead to Win is a great initiative for our region and we are pleased to support the program,” said Larry O’Brien, Mayor of the City of Ottawa. “There is a proven recipe here. This is precisely the sort of innovative action that takes the current economic situation and turns it into a compelling opportunity for growth.”
Lead to Win was initially launched after the telecom meltdown in 2002. More than half of the participants in that program started a new business in Ottawa. They collectively created more than 300 jobs and attracted over $90 million in investment.

Among the ex-Nortel employees who participated in the 2002 program were: David Vicary, who founded Nakina Systems and Weyeseyes, Chuck Colford, who founded Trigence (now AppZero), and Congurance IT, Jerry Everett, who founded On Conference, and Brian Hurley, who founded Liquid Computing and Purple Forge.

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  • Moose_Chaser

    Hey, you forgot the brilliant former Nortel engineer who, doing close “research” with his wife, developed the We-Vibe.

    Here is link:

    http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/01/19/ot-090…

    Engineers have sex lives too, ya know !

    MC

  • idontbeleive

    On a positive note………getting out of Nortel is a good thing these days. I got out a while ago and have the balance in my life back.

    Think of the health benefits of not having to constantly worry about job loss, that breaks down one's body. It's well known that repeated bad news over the years leads to long-term depression, anxiety, weight gain and heart problems. Nothing is more important than one's health.

    Moreover, with the talent we have, I am sure there would be many more companies launched by ex-Nortel employees which would be beneficial for Ottawa and Canada in the long run.

  • Moose_Chaser

    I agree with your comments totally !

    The stress has been growing since 2001 and I can tell you there IS an impact on your health.

    There is no point to making yourself sick, for an empty Pot O' Gold.

    MC

  • exnt2

    seems to be even more of a life post nortel – ha ha thats funny

  • TexasBahr

    There are many of us ex-Nortel types in the states who remember the excellent talent of our Northern neighbors and would like to rekindle the collaborative effort and demonstrate the 'right way' to run a company and contribute to future growth and success.
    When it comes time to expand presence in the states, give us a shout.

    -

  • Casual_Observer

    well said. They let me go last year and I feel so much better since. Still not working and just enjoying life a lot more than when I was working.

  • less

    …$129.95, is flying off shelves

    They fly, too !? Hmmm. Who doesn't have an airplane anymore?

    Note: That gentle steady buzzing sound emanating from Joel and Mike's last career development meeting came from their Customer Satisfaction Phones, ringing constantly, but set to “vibrate”, as not to break their focus on going “lean and mean”.

    Different tool, different focus, same effect: Total Satisfaction.

    But, nah, that gizmo is cheap junk. A hotdog in the Cowboys' VIP is costs more than $129.95.

  • gone2moro

    I need $300M to start up a Metro Ethernet Optical Business……

  • nortel_cn

    For sure this is not the best place to forward what's happening here in GDNT(Guangdong Nortel in sourthen China, developing part of nortel CDMA&LTE products), I have to do this, since this is the only channel that we can use to communicate with NA nortel ex-/empolyees.

    GDNT sucked me twice — Layoff & Layoff cancellation!

    GDNT employees are now raising up against the absurd mangement, we need your support. Empolyees from GDNT and Nortel are on the same boat, what we are treated would have been suffered by you, or will suffer you!

    The original post in chinese
    http://j4exgdnter.itpub.net/post/39226/483154

    Translated version by Google Translation
    http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&h…

    Great thanks if any one can read chinese and try to make a breif in english!

  • NTblinker

    GDNT sucked me twice — Layoff & Layoff cancellation!

    May be they encouraged you to do your job better than ever! Do not want bonusses or do not limit yourself to shift constraints(work 25 hours a day with no additional fees) do the job of 3 people in one. So all these means they were not selling any parts.:) Unfortunately I cannot translate what it is written in the passage.

  • XPM_guy

    The Google Translation link is broken, but for what it is worth, here's the output I got from pasting the Chinese post into iGoogle's translator (with an assist from Apple's translator on one paragraph in the middle that didn't translate completely with Google).

    In a nutshell, it sounds like GDNT announced layoffs a while back, then cancelled them at the last minute yesterday, leaving a lot of folks in the lurch. Since the layoffs have been cancelled, severance pay is not owed (as I understand it, the GDNT joint venture is not covered by Nortel's bankruptcy protection and thus cannot weasel out of its legal contracts with employees the way Nortel has elsewhere), and all the stress and expense of making employees seek employment elsewhere was ultimately unnecessary. Folks that landed other offers now have to chose between quitting GDNT (without the promised severance) to keep their new job or staying and going back on their word to the people they interviewed with. Hopefully that's close to what the original poster, j4exgdnter, said…

    To our Chinese brothers and sisters – hang in there! These bad times shall pass soon when Nortel is broken up and sold, as now seems almost certain to happen over the next few months. Then we will all have (or be looking for) new jobs, or at least new bosses, and we can all start putting this nightmare behind us :-)

    GDNT sucked me twice — Layoff & Layoff cancellation!
    j4exgdnter | 23 April, 2009 18:25
    David said at the meeting next week, our job is to find new jobs, whether internal or external, and the manager after this period many of the activities organized to guide us how we can find a new job faster. Manager responsible for the practices, we are very sure and praise.

    David said, the layoffs will occur in early May at the latest by the end of April. This week, we all begin to receive the e-mail, HR layoffs invited – announced job cuts meeting.

    Wednesday morning, including many of my colleagues have made a Farewell, but叫了暂停, there is no further explanation and arrangements.
    Wednesday morning, including worked together Farewell to send, has actually called the suspension, did not have any more further interpretation and arrangement.

    Labor Law for the Company in accordance with the procedures laid off, we have nothing to say. However, the company suddenly announced layoffs canceled, the problem is not so simple. According to the following reasons, require the company to continue to carry out the compensation (or the employee submitted his resignation, or dismissal of the company):

    1. The company's job cuts and layoffs cancellation notice affects our normal life, let us have suffered the pain of disappointment and anxiety. And this mistake is avoided, the management should be inappropriate for this incident to apologize to all affected employees.

    2. In announcing the layoffs, we started the company in other to seek appropriate jobs, and layoffs have been planned in accordance with the company's ready. In the meantime, we are faced with the test contacts and take part in interviews, the cost of the related expenditure.

    3. We are the company's layoff plans in accordance with the re-enacted their own family plan, up for the sudden cancellation, we can not accept.

    4. We get the offer, the new company requires us to report on time. If we continue to stay in GDNT, then we have accepted the offer is to deceive others, and this will our adverse impact on career development – a commitment of breach of trust will always be recorded in that file inside the company.

    The unanimous request of our company before 5.15 ready to leave in accordance with the plans to colleagues GDNT dismissal and termination compensation.

    ——————
    Willing to take part in concerted action, please request an apology and compensation for the company of my colleagues, send an email to eggcom@msn.com

    Please forward this open letter to more companies and IT industry, friends and allow them to understand our ideas and to support our approach.

    Thanks!

  • OldBNR1

    This shows that NT executives are poor decision makers and change their minds very often (WiMAX, apps, etc). Unfortunately, many decisions are irreversible, e.g., petitioning for Chapter 11

  • horace_grimswold

    Now that's a CAN-DO attitude. Awesome spirit.

  • less

    And POOF! the touchy-feelie stuff is promptly eclipsed by Nortel:

    Last week Nortel announced it had sold its CS 1500 softswitch to more than 135 customers globally. A deeper look at press release numbers between the initial product launch and last week's announcement, however, indicates initial momentum from the product's introduction has died out over the past year.

    Oops. Did Nortel fudge a few numbers? No way. We must allow the working proles 12-18 to turn it around, as usual. The, uh, what – ?

    Who knew Nortel had a contract with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union?
    Turns out, it does, and the 45 members of that organization who still work at Nortel are pressuring a judge to force the company to pay severance and other benefits. The CAW says Nortel also owes about 600 former and reitred workers their due, but Nortel disagrees.
    And so do the masses. The true socialists finally have no other choice than to abandon their anti-global trenches and OLPC/OHM (-orphaned/ handicapped/ minority) assembly lines to demand the:

    Rejection of the capitalist market and revival of an international socialist movement of the working class. Workers within Canada and throughout the world are facing the consequences of an economic system whose central principle is the pursuit of private profit—regardless of its consequences for society as a whole. In response to the unfolding crisis of world capitalism, the SEP fights for the socialist reorganization of the economy.

    To defend their jobs, wages and pensions, auto workers in Canada, no less than in the US, need a radically new strategy that involves a change in the activity, politics and philosophy of the labor movement. The Socialist Equality Party proposes:
    Militant industrial action based upon the independent interests of the working class.
    McGuinty’s pension announcement is part of an intensifying drive on the part of the big business elite that rules North America to make the working class pay for the crisis of world capitalism. Workers and pensioners at Nortel, Stelco, AbitibiBowater and countless smaller companies now face an uncertain future.

    Well, no, cuz after their militant actions and stuff, the prole car-builders can go back to protesting the rich people buying their cars that cause global warming.

    Give em few red T-shirts, flags, banners, stress balls and revolutionary plaques and the proles are happy.

  • less

    Work is the bread and blood of proles, not vacation paid for by working proles.

  • Casual_Observer

    “Even God doesn't plan to judge a man til the end of his days, why should you and I?”

    – Author Unknown

  • Moose_Chaser

    Are you really Jack Layton ?

    MC

  • tweaky

    any news on whats happeningin Germany? 50% laid off today I hear.

  • less

    lol – I'm a Yank: I had to Google”Jack Layton” to find out who you're talking about.
    I'm shaking my head because the masses are again behaving as expected. More and more opportunists (read “politicians”, “revolutionaries”, roach coach owners with KoolAid to sell) are glomming on to one Mike Zafirovski's staggering ineptitude as a leader by slyly inviting the downtrodden to call for vague, sweeping global social(ist) reforms, new world order, etc.
    Instead of FOCUSING on the CORE of the problem, Mike Z and ridding us all of his insipid robotic pep talk. the same dim, robotic chants of “Kumbaya” are being regurgitated by and for the proles to enjoy and become one with the universe.

  • waukegan

    Hey DJ and yall…

    Anyone interested in some fun early July holiday weekends?

    How bout organizing a They Killed Nortel protest?

    Picture folks dressed in black (T-shirts hopefully) circling outside MikeZ's house (north of Chicago) and John Manley's house (Ottawa). Gotta be legal.

    I can't organize it but I will be out in Ottawa any time July 1/4 timeframe.

  • exnt2

    of course there is a little china like system in Canada. Its called Quebec. They sucked all the profits from the newfies for the oil, sucked a lot of funding from the feds, gave super incentives to businesses setting up shop.

  • less

    No need for law and order then.

    Nortel should hire me as CEO so I may try my hand at leadership too. Win or lose, I still deserve to get paid. Just
    don't judge by my lack of an MBA. MBAs fail to.

  • Casual_Observer

    ummm..ok.

  • less

    To its credit Quebec has promised to export ice to the melting poles for free – if China supplies boats, India refrigerants, Iran fuel and the US volunteer workers (to atone for their 25% of CO2 emissions).

  • less

    http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/090…

    Best big companies (=”greedy global corps”) to work for

    Cisco Systems
    Fortune 1000 rank: 57
    Best Companies rank: 6
    No. of employees: 66,129
    Most common salaried job: Software Engineer IV
    Avg. pay in that job: $131,703

    Qualcomm
    Fortune 1000 rank: 244
    Best Companies rank: 16
    No. of employees: 15,400
    Most common salaried job: Sr. Engineer
    Avg. pay in that job: $102,030

    Juniper Networks
    Fortune 1000 rank: 603
    Best Companies rank: 84
    No. of employees: 7,014
    Most common salaried job: Member of Technical Staff 4
    Avg. pay in that job: $123,39

    NetApp
    Fortune 1000 rank: 647
    Best Companies rank: 1
    No. of employees: 7,645
    Most common salaried job: Member Technical Staff, Software 4
    Avg. pay in that job: $134,716

    Nortel Networks
    Peoples 1000 rank: 1
    Best Companies rank: 1
    No. of employees: BoD
    Most common salaried job: Believer
    Avg. pay in that job: marble team builder plaque

  • rfc1149

    The Z-ster doesn't have an MBA either.

    But why should he? He has traveled the true path to management enlightenment (GE)

  • linho

    Were you guys part of organization laid off then recalled a couple days later?
    Management smoked weeds I bet.

  • less

    Hmmmmmmmmm…. that was an awfully ambiguous “ok”. You just turned aournd and judged me based on a few Internet posts.

    I stand by my contention that any abled-bodied person who takes a year off on the taxpayer's; many dimes because “society” doesn't reward him the career he deserves is a lot like, uh, like Mike Z ahigngn around and bleeding Nortel dry until soemthing better comes along.

    Materialism is over. The opportunity to join the ranks of huddled masses in their collective struggle for a better tomorrow is the ultimate honor.

  • Casual_Observer

    LOL. I didn't judge anyone. I actually agreed with you. I didn't realize that's what you were contending. I agree with you on that as well.

  • scalpcutter

    I thought McGuinty had the solution.
    Retrain everyone to take carpentry or shovelling and work for minimum wage
    as an apprentice forever.

  • scalpcutter

    I guess there is a requirement for lots of tradesmen jobs and construction in Ontario. Have to keep those roads wide and safe, for all the new immigrants coming in so they can get a licence, pick up their welfare cheque and drive to Ottawa from Toronto to protest on Parliament Hill.
    Attaboy dalton.

  • whatnext4nt

    After Dalton gets done explaining his reneging on pension obligations maybe he can also explain why Ontario Employment Standards Act has FALSE AND DELIBERATELY MISLEADING STATEMENTS, and an Ontario Superior Court Judge does not even explain to the public why we have FALSE STATEMENTS in our Ontario laws. Ya, ya, I know that CCAA is a federal act and supersedes any PROVINCIAL legislation, blah, blah, blah … That is not an answer to these fundamental questions:

    WHY DO WE HAVE FALSE STATEMENTS IN OUR PROVINCIAL LABOUR LAWS?

    WHAT OTHER “LAWS” DO WE HAVE IN ONTARIO THAT ARE LIES?

    HOW CAN SUCH A FUNDAMENTAL LEGAL ISSUE BE COMPLETELY IGNORED IN THESE PROCEEDINGS?

    WHAT ARE THE PROVINCIAL AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS?

    NO ONE, AND I MEAN NO ONE, NOT NORTEL EXECUTIVES NOR HR, NOT A JUDGE, NOT THE GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO, NOT THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, NOR ANY SINGLE LAWYER OF THE HUNDREDS ON THE NORTEL CASE FOR ALL PARTIES, NO ONE ON THIS BLOG, NO WEBSITE THAT I CAN FIND, NO COLLEAGUE OR FRIEND, NO ONE, HAS ANSWERED THIS FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION.

    HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE ONTARIO WEB SITE:
    An employee is not entitled to severance pay if he or she:
    • has refused an offer of “reasonable alternative employment” with the employer;
    • has refused “reasonable alternative employment” that is available to the employee through a seniority system;
    • is severed and retires on a full pension (not including Canada Pension Plan benefits);
    • has his or her employment severed because of a strike, as long as the employer can show that the economic effects of the strike caused the closing of part or all of the business;
    • is employed in construction, including employees who are working off-site and who are commonly associated in work or collective bargaining with employees who work at the construction site;
    • is employed in the on-site maintenance of buildings, structures, roads, sewers, pipelines, mains, tunnels or other works;
    • is free to choose whether or not to work when the employer offers him or her work, and the employee is able to refuse work when it is offered, without penalty;
    • is guilty of wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty that is not trivial and was not condoned by the employer; or
    • has lost his or her employment because the contract of employment is impossible to perform or has been frustrated by an unexpected or unforeseen event or circumstance. THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE BANKRUPTCY OR INSOLVENCY or when the contract is frustrated or impossible to perform as the result of an injury or illness suffered by an employee.

  • whatnext4nt

    After Dalton gets done explaining his reneging on pension obligations maybe he can also explain why Ontario Employment Standards Act has FALSE AND DELIBERATELY MISLEADING STATEMENTS, and an Ontario Superior Court Judge does not even explain to the public why we have FALSE STATEMENTS in our Ontario laws. Ya, ya, I know that CCAA is a federal act and supersedes any PROVINCIAL legislation, blah, blah, blah … That is not an answer to these fundamental questions:

    WHY DO WE HAVE FALSE STATEMENTS IN OUR PROVINCIAL LABOUR LAWS?

    WHAT OTHER “LAWS” DO WE HAVE IN ONTARIO THAT ARE LIES?

    HOW CAN SUCH A FUNDAMENTAL LEGAL ISSUE BE COMPLETELY IGNORED IN THESE PROCEEDINGS?

    WHAT ARE THE PROVINCIAL AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS?

    NO ONE, AND I MEAN NO ONE, NOT NORTEL EXECUTIVES NOR HR, NOT A JUDGE, NOT THE GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO, NOT THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA, NOT THE MONITOR, NOR ANY SINGLE LAWYER OF THE HUNDREDS ON THE NORTEL CASE FOR ALL PARTIES, NO ONE ON THIS BLOG, NO WEBSITE THAT I CAN FIND, NO COLLEAGUE OR FRIEND, NO ONE, HAS ANSWERED THIS FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION.

    HERE IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE ONTARIO WEB SITE:
    An employee is not entitled to severance pay if he or she:
    • has refused an offer of “reasonable alternative employment” with the employer;
    • has refused “reasonable alternative employment” that is available to the employee through a seniority system;
    • is severed and retires on a full pension (not including Canada Pension Plan benefits);
    • has his or her employment severed because of a strike, as long as the employer can show that the economic effects of the strike caused the closing of part or all of the business;
    • is employed in construction, including employees who are working off-site and who are commonly associated in work or collective bargaining with employees who work at the construction site;
    • is employed in the on-site maintenance of buildings, structures, roads, sewers, pipelines, mains, tunnels or other works;
    • is free to choose whether or not to work when the employer offers him or her work, and the employee is able to refuse work when it is offered, without penalty;
    • is guilty of wilful misconduct, disobedience or wilful neglect of duty that is not trivial and was not condoned by the employer; or
    • has lost his or her employment because the contract of employment is impossible to perform or has been frustrated by an unexpected or unforeseen event or circumstance. THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE BANKRUPTCY OR INSOLVENCY or when the contract is frustrated or impossible to perform as the result of an injury or illness suffered by an employee.

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