The organization that runs three Ottawa museums has laid off 17 people due to budget constraints, CBC News has learned.

The vice-president of public affairs for the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation confirmed the layoffs Friday. The corporation is in charge of the Canada Agriculture Museum, the Canada Science and Technology Museum and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum.

Yves St-Onge said three of the cuts were public affairs clerks. There was also a handful of exhibit designers and the rest worked in library and cataloguing services. They were all handed their layoff notices Thursday.

"It was very difficult for the organization to come to that conclusion because these were employees, some with long service with us, but we had an overall commitement of maintaining a balanced budget," St-Onge said.

"It's the only way we could actually come out to a sustainable budget management to reduce our salary budgets."

Museums wanted to cut internally, not on museum floor

St-Onge added they did not want to take away from the visitor's experience by cutting jobs on the museum floors.

The union for public sector workers argued the employees' collective bargaining agreement was ignored in this layoff process. They also had to leave by the end of Thursday, the same day they received their notices.

"They're in a state of shock. They're angry, " said union representative Larry Rousseau, "To unceremoniously just come in and just drop this hatchet, I think there's a more sinister plan here and management has acted as one of the worst employers in the private sector."

St-Onge said museum revenue can't match rising inflation over the past several years. He added the museum did not receive the $3.5 million in annual appropriation funding from the federal government.