WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1168 Representatives Mary Nowocien (on the left) and Ann Converso (on the right) play tug-of-war with a CWA lawn sign that says, Let’s Take Care Of The People Taking Care Of Our Pets! outside the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center after making the Western New York Labor Community of an odd situation that recently unfolded during negotiations on a first contract for the center’s recently-Unionized Staff.   (WNYLaborToday.com Photo)

(ORCHARD PARK, NEW YORK) – Did you hear the one about management stealing some Union lawn signs placed on public property outside its business, and then lying when asked if they had at the bargaining table - only to be quickly corrected by their attorney who admits they did?

No, it’s not a bad joke. 

It really did happen and it happened to Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1168 during their continuing battle to attain a first contract with the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center, where it organized the company’s Employees in a contentious battle with Anti-Union management last year.

Here’s what went down, according to Mary Nowocien, CWA Local 1168’s Director of Mobilizing and Organizing, and Local 1168 Organizer Ann Converso, who told this sad story to Union Reps who assembled last week at the Buffalo AFL-CIO Central Labor Council’s monthly meeting:

After doing their due diligence and receiving an okay from officials at Town Hall, the Union placed three lawn signs - including one that read, in part: Let’s Take Care Of The People Taking Care Of Our Pets!, on public property off a sidewalk in front of the Orchard Park Veterinary Center at 3930 North Buffalo Street (Pictured Below/CWA Local 1168 Photo).

But somehow, someway - they disappeared, and in just a matter of hours.

Nowocien and Converso soon found out why, as a maintenance man for the company had been videotaped by a CWA Member employed at the center as he pulled the signs out of the ground and took them away.

During a negotiating session shortly thereafter, CWA Representatives at the bargaining table asked company officials: “Did you take our signs?”

Immediately, they said, a company administrator answered, “No!”

But then, a lawyer for management, corrected the administrator and admitted management “has your signs.”

The Veterinary Center Representatives then charged the CWA lawn signs had become a “safety issue” by allegedly blocking the view of motorists who were turning their vehicles into their business.

The CWA Officials demanded the return of their signs, which management did - but only by mailing them directly back to Local 1168’s Union Headquarters in nearby Amherst.

Asked what CWA’s reaction was to all of this, Converso told WNYLaborToday.com: “Why?  Why ‘immediately lie?’  ‘Just say we took them.’  In my fifty years of doing Union work - representing Member, bargaining contracts, ‘I’ve never run across something like this.’  ‘I hadn’t experienced it’ (before).”

Said Nowocien: “I ‘wasn’t’ surprised.  ‘I put nothing past them.’  (Orchard Park Veterinary Center management) ‘will do anything to shut us down’.  Their attorney ‘has said they would not do anything to squash their Employees’ voice, but what they are doing is squashing the Union’s voice.’”

What Nowocien was referring to was the recent firing of a Union Advocate employed at the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center - Local 1168 Member Mary Nowicki.

Nowicki, who has been described as a leader who amplified the voice of Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center Employees during the Organizing Drive and who’d worked for her employer since 2019, was fired on February 24th for her Union activity, CWA Officials charge.  

And, they add, Nowicki had never been disciplined or had any complaints against her until CWA was certified as the Employees’ Union Representative and she became a Union Advocate. 

So incensed about the firing, an array of Western New York Unions participated in a protest shortly thereafter outside the Orchard Park Veterinary Center to demonstrate their solidarity with Nowicki and CWA Local 1168.

The group of Workers - including Vet Techs, Vet Assistants, Laboratory Assistants, Pharmacy Assistants & Technicians, Accounting Clerks, Administrative Assistants, Client Service Reps, Surgical Assistants and Housekeeping, began their Organizing Drive in early 2022 after contacting Local 1168 with concerns about their working conditions.

Like many in the health care field, Orchard Park Vet Workers have been forced to deal with alarmingly low staffing levels and high rates of Staff turnover, creating serious barriers to their ability to provide adequate care for their animal patients.

Orchard Park Vet Workers also rallied around issues of equal treatment for all Employees, stronger job protections, bonuses to help retain Staff, and having a voice on the job to help strengthen their workplace. 

However, management at the Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center, which did not positively react to their Employees’ decision to Unionize, are still not cooperating when it comes to sitting down to negotiate a first contract with their CWA Local 11668-represented Workers.

To date, scheduled bargaining sessions only takes place once a week, and after working hours - and only for three-hour periods, which tighten the opportunity to make real gains at the bargaining table, a frustrated Nowocien and Converso tell WNYLaborToday.com.

“We ‘can’t get into issues and can’t get the momentum going’” with such a schedule, Converso said.

In the end, Nowocien says management “‘doesn’t want (their Employees) to have a say’” in terms of having a seat at the table and providing their in-put as to how their business could be better run.

High turnover also continues to be a problem at the Orchard Park Veterinary Center, they said.

And, unsurprisingly, Employee morale “is horrible,” Nowocien and Converso said. 

“When you have ‘one’ Vet Tech ‘responsible for forty crates (with a dog or a cat inside each), it’s unsafe staffing,’” Converso said.  “And this (veterinary center) ‘is not inexpensive.’  ‘We used to say they charge an arm and a leg - now it’s two arms and a leg.’  ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’  ‘Why not work together with your Employees and market your business to the Western New York Labor Community?’”

“‘It appears to me that they are planning on how to get to a decertification’ (of the Union),” Nowocien matter-of-factly added.

For More On This Labor News Story, Read:

Firing Of Union Advocate At The Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center ‘Draws The Ire’ Of The WNY Area Labor Federation - Call Goes Out To Area Unionists To Take Part In Friday Rally In Support Of CWA Local 1168 Member At www.wnylabortoday.com/news/2023/03/01/buffalo-and-western-new-york-labor-news/firing-of-union-advocate-at-the-orchard-park-veterinary-medical-center-draws-the-ire-of-the-wny-area-labor-federation-call-goes-out-to-area-unionists-to-take-part-in-friday-rally-in-support-of-cwa-local-1168-member/

And

140 Orchard Park Veterinary Medical Center Workers Vote To ‘Go Union’ With CWA Local 1168, ‘Become The First’ Veterinary Center In The Buffalo Area To Unionize At www.wnylabortoday.com/news/2022/07/31/buffalo-and-western-new-york-labor-news/140-orchard-park-veterinary-medical-center-workers-vote-to-go-union-with-cwa-local-1168-become-the-first-veterinary-center-in-the-buffalo-area-to-unionize/