The Glenbow Museum has laid off a group of its unionized full-time staff, citing a drop in the value of the museum’s endowment funds and donations.
“We have really been impacted by the financial downturn in the markets,” says Glenbow CEO Kirsten Evenden, adding that the layoffs were a last resort. “We’ve done a lot of trimming of operational budgets.”
Glenbow employee and union rep Wilf Allen says five full-timers were laid off earlier this week, and another six are being bumped to part-time. The Glenbow had about 70 full-time employees before the layoffs, and Allen says there were already 13 vacant positions at the museum. “Everyone was working full out to start with and then with this last round of layoffs — it is going to make it very difficult,” he says.
The archive section was especially hit hard by the job cuts, he adds. “In all honesty, I’m not sure how we’re going to get done everything that we’ve been doing…. The Glenbow is struggling.”
The Glenbow posted a $1.6-million deficit at the end of the 2008-09 fiscal year. Evenden, who has headed the Glenbow since former CEO Jeffrey Spalding’s sudden departure in January, says the museum has a deficit this fiscal year as well, but she won’t disclose numbers. “We’ve got a very low, very meager capital budget this year,” she says.
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