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The Art Gallery of Ontario has laid off 23 permanent staff and elected not to renew 47 contract workers, The Globe and Mail has learned.

The job losses are less severe than those suggested in a cost-cutting plan AGO management presented to representatives of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 535 on Feb. 26, which called for 61 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 23 of the job cuts announced Thursday were to union staff, leaving non-unionized senior managers untouched, though some senior staff left voluntarily in recent months as part of a restructuring plan to adapt to the AGO'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 per cent shy of projections, AGO officials told The Globe on March 12 that at least some layoffs appeared inevitable and the gallery would have to "do more with less."

Early negotiations with the union were laced with tension, with union representatives claiming their requests for more information about the method behind the proposed layoffs had been "stonewalled."

They also expressed doubts about the gallery's claims that all 47 contract workers had been hired specifically for the Transformation AGO renovation and never expected their contracts to be renewed.

But after three weeks, with some employees agreeing to reassign work in order to save jobs and with management making new decisions about the needs for future projects, 38 permanent jobs were taken off the chopping block.

"We cut it back to the lowest number where we felt we could make an impact on the budget but not hamstring our operations here," Ms. Bloch-Nevitte said.

A staff representative for OPSEU said the union plans to issue a response to the layoffs on Monday, when they have had more time to sort through the particulars and notify all affected members. But a staff representative said the union is concerned they have not been assured this is the last of the layoffs, a guarantee Ms. Bloch-Nevitte said is virtually impossible to give while the "environment outside is so unpredictable."

As of last month, OPSEU Local 535 represented 178 full-time and 227 part-time staff at the AGO.

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