ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO ANNOUNCES LAYOFFS

The Art Gallery of Ontario has laid off twenty-three permanent staff and elected not to renew forty-seven contract workers, according to the Globe and Mail. The job losses are less severe than those suggested in a cost-cutting plan the institution’s management presented to representatives of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 535 on February 26, which called for sixty-one permanent staff positions to be eliminated. “It is huge to those affected,” said Susan Bloch-Nevitte, executive director of public affairs at the AGO. “But we’re feeling pretty good about the fact that we were able to reduce those impacts, and we’re just continuing to try to right the ship.” All twenty-three of the job cuts announced Thursday were to union staff, leaving nonunionized senior managers untouched, though some senior staff left voluntarily in recent months as part of a restructuring plan to adapt to the gallery’s newly renovated Dundas Street site. The gallery has also instituted a salary freeze for all managers and senior executives and cut back on travel and consumption. Amid a faltering economy and with revenues falling 20 percent shy of projections, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s officials told the Globe and Mail on March 12 that at least some layoffs appeared inevitable and the gallery would have to “do more with less.”