Austin Pets Alive! (APA!) sets the standard for animal shelters across the nation, but some might say leadership isn’t upholding those standards. Workers at APA! are reporting disarray on all fronts, resulting in stress, anxiety, miscommunication, improper animal care, and harmful conditions for both the workers and the animals in our care.
That’s why we’ve formed Austin Pets Allied Workers (APAW). This union is born from the passion of the “boots in the kennels” workers who care deeply about the mission and the work we do. Workers from every corner of APA! joined together to form an organizing committee to fight for the right to better treatment for ourselves, our co-workers, and the pets that we care for.
Kennel Conditions
Naturally, our veterinarians and lifesaving program coordinators’ crucial knowledge comes first, but care-working staff are crucial. We are the closest thing that the animals in our custody have to a voice when it comes to their well-being, living conditions, and treatment plans.
We must make decisions for an animal’s safety and wellbeing, and we don’t make these calls lightly; we make them based on what is best for the animal, not what is convenient for us. Still, coordinators chastise us because it’s not the call they would have made, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen some of these coordinators on-site in the year I’ve been at APA!.
We often spend more than 10 hours a day with these animals and give our all to advocate for what is best for them. We spend more time caring for them than we get to see our loved ones at home in a given week, often staying after our long shifts. We ensure the safety and well-being of the companion animals that we are caring for, which can often lead to burnout.
Beating Burnout
Given these conditions, our turnover is so high. Many of us don’t have the means to take a break, nor are we properly staffed for the majority of us to do so. We do this work because we love what we do. We are passionate about these animals, we are passionate about APA!, and we are passionate about saving lives and making sure the lives we save make it into good homes. We deserve to be recognized and valued for the passion that we pour out of ourselves day in and day out.
Many of us would like to see a more sustainable Austin Pets Alive! on all fronts. We welcome people, train them up, and then they are gone within a matter of months due to burnout, injury, or something else that could have been avoided. This affects staff and morale, but in the end it really affects our animals, as we lose key, quality life-saving knowledge and care. A seat at the table would mean management would have to listen to our voices and, ultimately, what we and our animals need.
Moved to Organize
All of these conditions have pushed us to organize because we want the way that the public perceives us to match the way that we perform as an organization. Austin Pets Alive! strives in its mission to be the best of the best in terms of life-saving care and placement of pets, but we cannot pour from empty cups. In order to achieve and uphold our cornerstone values, we need to take care of the staff and the conditions they work in, that the animals subsequently live in.
I, and many of my co-workers, voted a big “union yes” in this election on May 1, 2024 because we’re in this for much more than ourselves. We are in this for the companion animals who are in our care, our co-workers who fear retaliation from higher-ups, our co-workers who think we are foolish to dream of unionizing, ourselves, our volunteers, our fosters, our community, our CEO, our leadership.
We have been very clear and concise to keep our messaging positive and not slander our workplace. Even though conditions are less than ideal, it is still a home away from home for so many of us. We pour our hearts into this establishment every day. Yet we have still somehow found ourselves met with negativity from our leadership when we have only set out to better APA!’s working conditions and the living conditions and quality of care for the animals.
If and when we win this thing, I know that APA! will become an even better organization than it already is and have the true ability to stand by our cornerstones and mission statements. The change, like all good ones, may be slow, but it will be great and worthwhile.
A Union of Members
“We are APA!, not some strange offshoot of troublemakers,” said our evening facilities lead Rodger Griffiths. “We are there when a dog needs help, we are there when cats need a home or ringworm treatment, we are there running across campus after loose dogs, we are there when they pass away in our arms, in our homes, and even our offices. We are not strangers, we are not adversaries, we are APA! every day.”
“I would like to see an increased transparency between directors and on the ground staff,” said one of our organizing committee members, Ellis Avallone. “I work with a lot of the directors because of my job as a data analyst and have learned a ton about our operational structure. However, there are still many things that don’t make sense to me. Having a codified seat at the table can change that.”
Community Support
We have been so lucky to have amazing staff organizers, like Yana Kalmyka (San Antonio DSA, and EWOC), Keith “Chub” McCrory (IAM), Dave Smith (NVPU), and Liz Hughston (NVPU) who have been the most incredible sources of knowledge, support, and #PAWlidarity for us. We have definitely encountered challenges and had our days of feeling absolutely hopeless, but those have been very few and far between. That’s thanks to the support these folks and our community of volunteers, fosters, council people, news outlets, and everyone across the world have given us!
On April 28, 2024, we hosted our “Paws to the Polls” rally at the Texas AFL-CIO. We handed out “power gear,” including APAW pins, stickers, and bandanas, and hosted speakers, including members of our staff from different teams; Keith “Chub” McRory; Tessa Mitterhoff from MOVE Texas; Rick Levy, president of Texas AFL-CIO; and a heartwarming speech from Rodger Griffiths.
We have learned so much along this journey and how to better communicate our grievances into solid, cohesive foundation pieces for us to fight the good fight for us, our neighbors and the animals we care for day to day.
Our Continued Fight
Unionizing APA! would provide us workers with further clarity on the day-to-day goings on within our departments, our huge organizational wide reorganization that has thrown every worker’s job up in the air, solidified training and procedures, as well as better systems of discipline when warranted.
When these concerns come from just one person, management can just chalk it up to “moaning and groaning,” which is why our election count on June 7, 2024, and gaining that seat at the bargaining table are so crucial. We deserve to be met with good faith, true consideration, and honesty. We deserve better wages, better benefits, more staffing support, safer working conditions, and an end to unfair punishments and terminations. Our animals deserve better consideration and living conditions.
Once we win the election, we also hope to reinstate the positions of those we lost along the way to this fight. Organizing a union is not an easy feat. Whether our friends and co-workers resigned voluntarily or were fired for organizing with us, we feel they deserve their place back with us at APA! and sitting next to us at the bargaining table.
If and when we win this thing, I know that APA! will become an even better organization than it already is and have the true ability to stand by our cornerstones and mission statements. Like any good change, it may be slow, but it will be great and worthwhile.
For the people. For the pets. I stand in #PAWlidarity with each and every co-worker, manager, visitor, volunteer, adopter, animal — really every being who exists at APA! at any given time.
United we bargain, divided we beg.
