LAYOFFS AT ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO AS EXPANSION BEGINS

Seventy-one employees at the Art Gallery of Ontario will be laid off by the end of May, as the gallery begins work on the $195-million expansion and renovation designed by architect Frank Gehry, James Adams reports in the Globe and Mail. This likely is the harbinger of further cuts in staffing over the three-year construction period that is expected to conclude in the spring of 2008. The AGO has an estimated 450 full-time and part-time staff, including three hundred represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.