CUTS to Glasgow’s museums will leave the city forking out for “expensive contractors” and a diminished public offering, workers warned this weekend.

At a rally on Saturday outside the Burrell Collection, one of the city’s flagship galleries, public-sector union Unison called for SNP and Green councillors to reverse cuts to cultural institutions. Reps also called on the Scottish government to provide long-term funding.

Glasgow Life, the “arms-length external organisation” which runs museums, libraries and sports facilities on behalf of the city council, plans to cut 37 posts out of a total of 128 in the museum’s workforce.

Alison, a long-serving curator in Glasgow Life’s museums division, told the rally she had experienced a wave of cuts in the 1990s. “The museums went through sweeping cuts. Then, conservation was halved and we were in the wilderness for a number of years.

“And it took four years or so for a service-wide plan to review and determine that actually cutting the professional staff was a grave mistake.

“We’re now going back to the drawing board of 30 years ago. We know what will happen. Cut professional staff and the care of the civic collection will diminish. The public offer and service will diminish.

“The work we can do with the public, the outreach and learning work we deliver, will be severely damaged. And what will happen is that external contractors will come in, very expensively, and do only a fraction of the work that has been cut.”

The planned job losses are the result of a significant cut to Glasgow Life’s budget, as part of plans to address a £49.3 million shortfall in the council funds. It has put the spotlight on the funding arrangements for the city’s museums and galleries — which, unlike major venues in Edinburgh, are not considered national institutions.

Unison Glasgow City branch convener Brian Smith said: “Our solution is to have Scottish government funding for the museums … People outside Glasgow use the museums but the council doesn’t get any money.

“In the short term we need [council leader] Susan Aitken and the SNP and Green groups on the city council to change their position on these job cuts.”

A spokesman for Glasgow Life said: “Glasgow’s museums and collections receive careful and considered care and this is going to continue.

“The savings Glasgow Life is making this year add up to around 9 per cent of the annual service fee the charity receives from Glasgow City Council and ensure we will not have to close any venues. More than half of the Glasgow Life museums posts affected by these savings measures are currently vacant.

“We are working closely with staff and unions to work through what this will mean for individual members of staff. Wherever possible, we have identified ways of making savings by reducing, rather than losing, Glasgow Life services, programmes and events, retaining the potential to rebuild them in the future.”