The Newfoundland and Labrador Labour Relations Board excluded veterinarians from a VetStrategy clinic bargaining unit while rejecting the employer’s attempt to remove four administrative and reception positions as managerial.
The January 19, 2026 reasons in the UFCW Local 1252 and VetStrategy Newfoundland Inc. certification proceeding, 2026 NLLRB No. 1, explain the board’s earlier directions on which positions belonged in the unit. They address two different questions: whether the veterinarians shared the other workers’ bargaining interests, and whether the disputed support staff exercised real managerial authority.
Separate professional interests
The parties agreed that veterinary assistants, technicians and receptionists should generally be included, and that the practice manager should be excluded. The board accepted those agreed boundaries.
VetStrategy disputed the inclusion of doctors of veterinary medicine. The board considered their university education, membership in a regulated profession and different responsibilities, together with authorities addressing separate professional bargaining interests and veterinary clinics in other jurisdictions.
It found that the other positions shared a community of interest suitable for collective bargaining, but that the evidence did not establish the same connection for the veterinarians. Their exclusion concerned this bargaining unit; the reasons did not establish a general prohibition on veterinarians organizing.
Advice was not effective control
The employer also sought to exclude one administrative support position and three receptionists, sometimes described as team leads. It argued that they helped make and implement managerial decisions, controlled their own schedules and communicated procedures to colleagues.
The union countered that they did not supervise fellow employees, exercise material managerial control or determine workplace policy. The board accepted that position.
Applying the Hibernia test identified in the submissions, it found no effective control over other employees and no decisions or effective recommendations materially affecting their economic lives. Occasional feedback about colleagues’ training or performance remained advisory; the staff could not independently determine their co-workers’ livelihoods or operational policy.
The board also emphasized primary duties. Some management-related functions, or a supervisory label, did not by themselves establish enough authority to justify exclusion where oversight was secondary to the employee’s own work.
The four disputed support positions remained in the unit. The January reasons determined its composition, not wages or other collective-agreement terms.
