| NEWS | United for Respect Pet Pressure PetSmart employees in Phoenix demand change to address rising dog deaths, work conditions. BY ELIAS WEISS W orkers concerned about their wages and benefits, work environ- ment, staffing, and the care of animals inside the stores of Phoenix-based PetSmart are increasing their pressure for change. United for Respect, a national nonprofit worker advocacy group, unveiled a new billboard last week on Interstate 17 near Union Hills Drive, close to the company’s headquarters. The billboard features a dachshund urging corporate executives to make a tough decision: “Wall Street Greed or PetSmart Associates?” Organizers of the campaign want to force the company to meet with workers to address their concerns. Store employees are seeking a $15 hourly minimum wage, a safer work environment, healthcare benefits for all employees, increased training, equip- ment upgrades, job protections, and worker representation on the board of directors. On September 14, more than 400 employees and supporters signed a letter to Joanne Dwyer, PetSmart’s vice president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, who joined the company in the newly created role in May. “Our stores are in crisis,” workers wrote in the letter. They asked Dwyer to invest more in PetSmart’s staff and reclassify the business as a live animal care center, not a retailer. The letter also noted that last month PetSmart faced a class-action lawsuit after groomers in California alleged they were deceived and trapped in debt after completing the company’s training program. That lawsuit is pending. 12 A freezer at a PetSmart in Arizona is stuffed with dead animals in plastic bags. Overflowing from their designated cooler, the deceased pets are stored next to food for living animals. “We’ve been pushing PetSmart to put pet care over profit for more than two years, but we haven’t seen meaningful changes even as our paychecks get stretched thinner,” the letter continued. The calls for change at the company, which employs about 56,000 people across more than 1,600 stores in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, could be a prelude to unionization efforts. ‘There’s A Lot of Death’ Oscar Cordaro has always loved animals. Naturally, he was pretty excited when he got a day job at a PetSmart store in metro Phoenix. It did not take long for that excitement to dwindle. The atmosphere was zoolike on a recent Sunday at the store where he works. Cordaro said he was stuck working alone, grappling with the urge to succumb to burnout. That’s when three tropical birds dropped dead in their cages on the sales floor. “The animals don’t get the food and water that they need because I have to help customers,” Cordaro, 25, told New Times. “It is exhausting.” When Cordaro is behind the cash register, he can’t tend to the hundreds of animals inside the store. Moments later, it was a pair of hamsters. The animals were healthy when they arrived at the store days before. Then, suddenly, they were dead, he said. Cordaro said he has to ring up customers and “do the jobs of three other people” on those frenzied and lonely Sundays. He needs to drive nearly an hour each way to Phoenix to dispose of the dead animals, but there’s no time for that in the day. As a result, coolers — which also contain food for live animals — overflow with corpses. “There’s a lot of death,” Cordaro said. “PetSmart doesn’t schedule enough people per shift, so issues get missed.” According to the company’s >> p 15 SEPT 29TH–OCT 5TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
