Contextualizing the closure of the NVPU

Last month, the closure of the National Veterinary Professionals Union (NVPU) was officially announced. The NVPU was the only union dedicated to veterinary support staff in the United States, and its dissolution was precipitated by the closure of All Creatures Animal Hospital in Bremerton, Washington, where the union operated since 2021.  

“We had no indication that that there was any kind of financial issue,” said Liz Hughston, RVT, who served in the NVPU since its inception, most recently as the union’s president, of the clinic’s closure. “And they’re operating other clinics. All of us find it a little bit hard to believe that they wouldn’t be able to negotiate a deal on, you know, rent for the building, which is one of the reasons they claimed for the closure.” 

Union-based practice closures in veterinary medicine are nothing new in recent years. VIN News reports that of the eight practices in which veterinary staff were union members, four have closed since 2018. Unionization efforts in veterinary medicine have been largely spearheaded by veterinary technicians who deal with workplace issues, namely burnout, low pay, and lowered job satisfaction. According to Hughston, unions enable these workers to have a say in such factors. 

“If anyone wants to have a voice in any of the decisions made on the floor at their practice, the only way to do that is for everyone to come together to have a unified voice,” she said. “No one is paying attention to the one vet tech or the assistant trying to make things better.” 

How did the NVPU get its start? 

The NVPU started out on Facebook. According to Hughston, Morgan Van Fleet, a veterinary technician from Washington, wrote in a Facebook post that she was frustrated with being illegally fired for a medical reason. Hughston believes she had a legitimate case against Blue Pearl and could have won a lawsuit had she filed.  

“But she also knew if she pursued that it would only help her, and it wouldn’t actually help the people who were still at the practice,” Hughston explained. 

Van Fleet realized that collective action was the way forward, so she created a website for what would eventually become the NVPU.  

“She had made a website,” Hughston recalled. “She had a donate button. I clicked the join button and then she was like, ‘Oh, wait, no, this isn’t real. Like, I didn’t think anybody was really going to do anything.’ And I was like, ‘No, you’re totally right. This is exactly what we need.’”  

Hughston wasn’t always such a quick sell. As a member of Gen X, she recalls growing up and learning about unions in a historical context, rather than in modern practice.  

“You had an eight-hour workday, and you had the weekend, and we have child labor laws—all of these things that unions fought for historically,” she said. “And, you know, I was a teenager in the 80s. And so, then seeing what Reagan was doing with the unions and then watching the decline, you know, I was really of a mind of ‘What do we need unions for?’” 

However, as the field of veterinary medicine became more corporatized, Hughston learned more about the need for employee representation.  

“What was happening was that the people on the floor, the people doing the actual work, lost their voice in the decisions that were being made in the practice, in the way medicine was practiced, in what they were able to kind of do for themselves, for each other, [and] for their patients,” she said. “So, all of that was just blunted because there were now so many layers between the floor and who’s actually making decisions. And in many cases, we have people who own these veterinary corporations with no veterinary background whatsoever.” 

According to Hughston, the field of veterinary medicine wasn’t always set up this way.  “When I started, when you were working for a veterinarian who lived and worked in your community, they were a small business owner, and a lot of the decisions were made with the community in mind, with this team in mind and with the clients and the pets that you care for in mind,” she recalled. “And so, I realized one voice wasn’t gonna cut it anymore and the only way to amplify the voice of the people on the floor was to come together.” 

Unifying unions 

With this realization in mind, Hughston reached out to established unions to get the ball rolling. After consulting with the Service Employees International Union and others, it was discouraging to discover that asking for help was, in fact, a big ask, even from established unions. The field of veterinary medicine, in Hughston’s words, has “for all intents and purposes, zero union density.”  

But Hughston persisted and held a successful union election at Blue Pearl North Seattle. Eventually, the NVPU secured a partnership with the International Longshore Warehouse Union (ILWU), which primarily represents warehouse employees, machinists, and dockworkers on the west coast, to work together to unionize veterinary workers in their area. 

However, Hughston notes that starting a union is the easy part. After elections take place, gathering dues paying members and keeping them on board can pose a significant challenge. Signing a union card or voting in an election does not automatically entail union membership, and dues paying members are the lifeblood of many unions, especially those that are just starting out. Because of this reality, maintaining a union is no small task, especially when a central source of support closes down, as was the case of the NVPU. 

“All Creatures Animal Hospital was the only hospital that had people who were dues-paying members of NVPU,” Hughston explained. “And so when that hospital closed with no other organizing, you know, no elections happening, no contract negotiations going on, we were losing our only source of income.”  

Not only did the NVPU lose its income flow when All Creatures Animal Hospital closed, but recruitment had been a challenge in today’s economic and political climate. Add in the centralization of corporate ownership, and the dissolution of unions is an all too common outcome for workers who want to organize. 

“These companies make it incredibly difficult and really frightening, terrifying for people to consider working together to unify and organize into a union,” she explained, adding that the “functional monopoly” formed by veterinary corporations in metropolitan areas limits options for veterinary workers who want to form unions. “They make it almost untenable for people.” 

Hughston notes that trepidation around unionization is understandable. With 73% of workers in the United States citing financial stress, 81% of workers worrying about losing their jobs, and unemployment rates rising, many workers are prioritizing keeping their jobs in uncertain times, which discourages union participation as a whole. 

“Everything is becoming a lot less certain in a profession where I never thought we would see layoffs or the potential of not being able to find a job as a veterinary support worker,” Hughston explained. “I’ve been in this industry now for over 20 years and it has never been like this in vet med. It used to be, when we were organizing people, we could say, ‘Well, what’s the worst thing that happens?’ Like you’re fighting for yourself for your rights, and if the company comes back and says, ‘Well, we’re going to close the hospital.” You know, you can go down the street and get another job easily because everyone’s hiring veterinary workers. And that’s just not where we are anymore.” 

And in the case of the NVPU, Hughston adds it’s likely that pets will feel the sting of All Creatures Animal Hospital’s closing as well. 

“They’re the only exotic hospital in their area,” Hughston explained. “So, all of the clients and pets that they served that are not dogs and cats, they’re left without care.”   

What are the next steps for the NVPU? 

The future of the NVPU is unclear and for now, Hughston is referring anyone interested in unionizing in veterinary medicine to the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. 

“That is a group of volunteers who help groups of employees who want to organize,” she explained. “It teaches them about their rights in the workplace and helps connect workers with unions interested in representing them. So, there are still unions—big unions—out there who want to organize veterinary workers, including ILWU on the West Coast.” 

However, Hughston emphasizes that fear of retribution remains a sizable barrier to unionization in the field of veterinary medicine, and that people are hesitant to step into leadership roles.  

“A lot of that comes down to the fear of being blackballed, of not being able to work in the profession,” Hughston said. “And so, I think that’s what holds a lot of people off from wanting to get involved. And I don’t blame them. You know it’s not an easy thing. So hopefully someone in the future will be interested in stepping up and taking it over and taking it forward.” 

Photo credit: © Andyworks + via Getty Images Plus 

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