New York CNN –
Employees at two of the largest drugstore chains in the United States say harsh working conditions make it difficult to fill prescriptions safely, which could put their customers’ health at risk. Now they are demanding change by staging a series of strikes across the country.
Pharmacy workers at some Walgreens stores, including pharmacists, technicians and support staff, are planning a strike between October 9 and 11, an organizer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the chain confirmed to CNN. Some employees plan to be out for just one day, while others expect to close their pharmacies for all three days.
Employees at more than 500 of the roughly 9,000 Walgreens stores across the United States have expressed interest and solidarity, a Walgreens pharmacy employee and strike organizer said, although fewer are likely to participate.
CNN spoke to employees at three Walgreens stores in three states who said they plan to leave the stores.
The planned action comes after pharmacy employees quit their jobs at several CVS stores in the Kansas City area last week.
The coordinated effort at some Walgreens stores is a response to what pharmacy employees describe as onerous prescription and vaccination expectations placed on pharmacists by management, organizers said. The result is that employees often fall behind and have to deal with angry customers.
The company sets performance expectations based on the number of team members each pharmacy should have, the pharmacy official said. In reality, however, the number of employees is significantly lower. At the same time, the worker said, training hours for new technicians have been cut.
“We do not believe that Walgreens allows us to provide safe care to our patients on a daily basis,” the organizer said. “Walgreens isn’t responsive, they don’t fix these things.”
A Walgreens representative said the company has increased training for new pharmacists but took a pause on what it called “non-critical” training during the busy vaccination season.
Walgreens Representatives also told CNN that there were never any company quotas and that all task-based metrics for retail pharmacy employees were eliminated as part of team member performance reviews last year. The company said it made an additional investment of $265 million in its nationwide pharmacy team this fiscal year and created dedicated inventory management and administrative roles for pharmacists.
Still, a pharmacy employee who said his store’s employees would participate in Monday’s strike told CNN that they would be expected and incentivized to administer more vaccines. “I spend almost all day in the injection room, and when I’m not there I’m filling prescriptions because we’re so backlogged,” they said.
“There were nights where I was close to tears because it was so hard,” they said. “A patient gave me a punch and told me I was doing a good job, and that meant so much to me. The patients care more about us than the employer.”
Another pharmacist told CNN that he expected his pharmacy to close during the planned strike period and that he had heard from Walgreens pharmacists at 13 other stores in his state who were interested in participating.
“We will cause much more harm to people in the next ten years of working this way than if we were to be out for three days,” said the pharmacist. “It’s time to try something different. Every year we get the same promises and every year we get the same Band-Aid on the problem.”
In a statement to CNN, Walgreens acknowledged that its pharmacy employees were overworked.
“The last few years have required unprecedented effort from our team members, and we share their pride in that work – but recognize that it has been a very challenging time,” said Fraser Engerman, Walgreens communications director. “We also understand the tremendous pressure currently facing retail pharmacy across the United States. We are committed and listening to the concerns of some of our team members.”
Walgreens is committed to “ensuring our entire pharmacy team has the support and resources necessary to continue to provide the best care to our patients while caring for their own well-being,” Engerman added. “We are investing significantly in pharmacist salaries and hiring bonuses to attract and retain talent in hard-to-staff locations.”
Walgreens and CVS pharmacy employees and pharmacy representatives told CNN that her job has always been difficult, but the pandemic has made everything nearly impossible. Employees describe severe and chronic staff shortages, low wages, high vaccination rates, long stretches without bathroom breaks, abusive management and violent customers.
Inspired by successful labor strikes across the country this year, they are saying “enough is enough” and organizing walkouts as part of what some labor advocates are calling “Pharmageddon.”
In September, CVS pharmacists closed up to 22 pharmacies in two weeks in two walkouts in the Kansas City area as part of a planned protest. That prompted executives at the Rhode Island-based retailer to meet with employees and assure them of additional support and higher overtime pay to come.
“Pharmacists are doing exactly what they were trained to do, which is to assess the situation and take whatever action is necessary to ensure they are providing the best patient care,” said Michael Hogue, CEO of the American Pharmacists Association, who traveled to Kansas City this week, to meet with CVS executives and strike organizers. “We have a widespread problem of inadequate staffing in community pharmacies in the United States.”
Prem Shah, chief pharmacy officer and president of pharmacy and consumer health at CVS, released an internal memo reviewed by CNN apologizing to his pharmacy teams for not more quickly addressing concerns in the region.
Another meeting with Shah is scheduled for late next week, but no time or place has been set, a CVS strike organizer told CNN.
CVS officials told CNN that no specific meeting has been scheduled because executives do not consider this a “one-time meeting or update.” “It is an ongoing two-way dialogue to share how we are meeting the commitments we have made to our teams and to continue to hear their direct feedback,” said Amy Thibault, senior director of external communications at CVS Pharmacy.
“We are committed to providing access to consistent, safe and high-quality healthcare to the patients and communities we serve and are working with our pharmacists to address any concerns head-on,” Thibault said in a statement to CNN. “We are focused on developing a sustainable, scalable action plan that can be implemented in markets that may need support so we can continue to provide the high-quality care our patients depend on.”
A key organizer of the CVS strikes in Kansas City told CNN that if there is no meeting this week, there could be another round of industrial action.
Even a day without access to medications would be catastrophic for Americans, said Amanda Applegate of the Kansas Pharmacists Association. “But making sure you get those prescriptions out in a timely, efficient and safe manner is important [why] Pharmacists are going out,” she said. Pharmacists aren’t asking for huge raises and vacation days, she added, but rather more help doing their jobs.
This week, more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers walked off the job citing similar issues, marking the largest health care worker strike in U.S. history.
Pharmacist advocates believe the walkouts will likely continue for some time. CVS and Walgreens pharmacists are not currently represented by a union and these efforts were coordinated by individual workers. However, multiple sources told CNN that CVS and Walgreens employees have recently contacted union groups.
While Kansas City “was a powder keg,” Applegate said, these walkouts could have happened anywhere.
“On a good day it’s a hard job. It’s an incredibly rewarding job, but it’s hard,” she said. “And so the idea that pharmacists essentially become ATMs in these environments and promote volume over quality is why this is happening.”
This story has been updated with new information.