3 volunteers sacked over hot animal shelter

A dispute between the boss and volunteers at an animal shelter has lead to the volunteers being sacked.

Animal shelter volunteers should be valued. They give their time and effort more or less free of charge. They are the bedrock of animal rescue and yet at the Maricopa County animal shelter three volunteers have been let go not to return because of a dispute between the volunteers and management.

The video points to a dispute over the 100 F temperatures in the facility. I can only take information from the video as access to the written report is denied me.

One comment on YouTube said:

“The county is scapegoating the issue by firing these women. The county has safety experts who should have managed that site before these women pointed out the unsafe conditions.” – KingBrowser

Comment

It appears that the three volunteers concerned were too vocal in the eyes of management over the standard of care at the facility. This appears to have annoyed management who sacked them summarily.

I guess animal shelter volunteers don’t have many employment rights. Their jobs are probably unprotected by the usual extensive employment laws which protect paid employees.

The moral to the story (if I am correct) is to shut up and put up if you are an animal shelter volunteer. That said all animal shelter volunteers are passionate about animal welfare and they are often smart and committed. It is hard for them to shut up. And in any case they want to help and improve the facility.

I tend to favour the volunteers in situations like this. Whatever they said and did it was driven by a concern for the animals. Therefore they should be listened to and a respectful dialogue should be entered into with the goal of improving the shelter and maintaining good relations between staff and management.

Bearing in mind the negative publicity, this shelter may have difficulty in retaining volunteers going forward.