Could the AGO shut down if over 400 workers strike?

A strike is looming over the Art Gallery of Ontario as workers get ready to hit the picket line, risking a “full shutdown” of the institution later this month, according to its union.

Ontario Public Service Union (OPSEU/SEFPO) Local 535 has been at the bargaining table with management for 10 months, aiming for a contract that includes a new wage offer and addresses the issue of contracting out staff positions at the gallery.

In the months-long process, the union said management has not put forward a new wage offer. If a resolution is not reached in just over a week, staffers will strike on March 25.

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This follows three years of Bill 124, a law repealed last month that capped wage increases for public sector workers.

“These are over 400 workers involved in gallery logistics, maintenance, technical support, retail, hospitality, custodial work, and more – if you imagine what would happen if workers walk, a full shutdown is definitely on the table,” Vic Wojciechowska, the union’s communications officer, told CTV News Toronto on Thursday.

Laura Quinn, AGO’s director of communications, said the gallery is working hard to avoid a labour disruption and is still engaged in negotiations.

“We respect the bargaining process and remain hopeful that we will reach a negotiated agreement with OPSEU soon,” she said. 

OPSEU/SEFPO Local 535 President Paul Ayers said that management has increasingly turned towards contracting out labour, relying on part-time, precarious work. “It's getting harder to make a decent living as an employee of the AGO," he said in a news release Wednesday.

"We keep the gallery doors open and the lights on: we are curators, researchers, technicians, designers, electricians, carpenters, instructors, and more. Many of us are artists in our own right. Without us, there would be no public delivery of the arts."

A decade ago, a strike loomed at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) as the institution grappled with similar issues, which the union described at the time as, “fighting off employer demands for more part-time, unstable work and the pervasive use of outside companies to do AGO employees' jobs.”