Food & Solidarity Stands With Dogs Trust Workers
Food & Solidarity exists to offer material support to workers organising for better conditions. Right now, we’re hosting the Unite the Underdogs Mutual Aid Fund to help Dogs Trust staff—facing unfair pay and 300 redundancies—afford union membership and fight back.
Why this matters:
🐾 Dogs lose too: Cuts risk welfare standards at rehoming centres.
✊ Solidarity works: Unions give workers a voice—but dues shouldn’t be a barrier.
💚 You can help: Donate to the fund or sign their petition today.
Unite the Underdogs: Raising Mutual Aid to offset high costs of Unite union dues for underpaid Dogs Trust employees, 300 of whom are at risk of redundancy.
Our Charity & its New Strategy
We are employees at Dogs Trust, the UK's largest dog welfare charity. Founded in 1891, Dogs Trust rehomes thousands of dogs each year, while providing extensive support to dog owners via education, training, advocacy, and preventative services throughout the UK.
Despite our growing concerns around unfair working conditions and inequitable pay - executives just announced the launch of a new strategy, which threatens to make 300 of our centre and community-based staff members redundant, close our Newbury Rehoming Centre, and significantly reduce operations at our Ilfracombe and Bridgend Rehoming Centres. Dogs Trust canine carers, trainers, rehomers, and receptionists are the backbone of the charity. Their expertise, experience, and dedication are irreplaceable - many of them have been with us for 10-20 years.
Employees are currently in the midst of a collective consultation, urging leadership of Dogs Trust to explore alternative solutions to financial or structural challenges without resorting to job cuts. Please consider signing this change.org petition to show your support for the Dogs Trust staff and to help stop their redundancy.
Why We Need a Union
Many of our centre employees joined the Unite union because rehoming centres were chronically understaffed to the point that it became unsafe. Employees were pushed so hard that many took leaves of absences - some eventually left. Despite the carers’ best efforts, many felt unable to give the dogs sufficient time, care, and socialisation needed to find their forever homes.
But the union isn’t just for centre or community staff. We also include a number of higher paid and/or head office employees, who joined because we are concerned about decision-making at the top and committed to supporting our colleagues’ ability to collectively bargain. We believe everyone at the organisation should be valued, and the lack of a union (especially for maintenance, facilities, and animal carers), the absence of clear pay structures, and stories of overwork and under-appreciation among centre teams highlighted systemic issues that could only be addressed collectively.
We are actively building Unite union membership numbers to gain voluntary (or statutory) recognition, which will allow us to collectively bargain for fairer conditions. To learn more about our efforts, please visit our Unite the Underdogs instagram page or to join, please visit the Unite the union website.
Mutual Aid Fund - Unite the Underdogs!
Union membership fees are not affordable for everyone, especially many of our underpaid front line staff at Dogs Trust.
To combat this barrier to unionising, we have started a mutual aid fund (hosted by Food & Solidarity) to help cover some of the membership costs. If you'd like to contribute to help Dogs Trust staff access the advice and expertise of a union, please do so here.
We are grateful to Food & Solidarity for their quick action and unanimous support for our efforts.
Please note: though building membership is a priority for our group, we are primarily focused on supporting alternative proposals submissions through May 2025.
