- Walgreens pharmacy workers are laying the groundwork for a nationwide strike and multiple rallies in late October to protest unsatisfactory working conditions and are in talks with employees at other retail pharmacies about joining, CNBC has learned.
- These potential plans, which some CVS employees want to join, reflect growing discontent among retail pharmacy employees for years.
- One organizer sees nationwide strikes at several pharmacy chains as the “next step” in the fight against current working conditions for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other support staff.
A woman walks near a Walgreens pharmacy on March 9, 2023 in New York City.
Leonardo Munoz | Corbis news | Getty Images
Walgreens pharmacy workers are laying the groundwork for a nationwide strike and multiple rallies in late October to protest unsatisfactory working conditions and are in talks with employees at other retail pharmacies about joining, CNBC has learned.
These measures, still in the planning stages, reflect growing dissatisfaction among retail pharmacy employees, who have complained for years about having to contend with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations from management. The Covid pandemic has only exacerbated these problems, with new duties such as testing and vaccinations placing even more strain on pharmacists and technicians.
Those frustrations came to a head in recent weeks when some pharmacy employees at Walgreens locations across the country and CVS stores in the Kansas City area staged separate walkouts. These demonstrations — and planning for a broader walkout — are contributing to one of the most active years for the labor movement in recent U.S. history.
A Walgreens organizer, an employee of the chain Who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the strikes were planned for Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. Another organizer named Shane Jerominski, an independent pharmacist who formerly worked for Walgreens, confirmed these appointments. Jerominski is a pharmacy labor advocate who has been actively involved in organizing the recent walkouts.
The Walgreens organizer said this was the case I have had discussions with pharmacy employees from other retail chains about participating in the group strike. The person sees nationwide strikes in several pharmacy chains as the “next step” in the fight against current working conditions.
A Walgreens spokesperson referred CNBC to the company’s previous statement in response to pharmacy staff strikes this week. A CVS spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Walgreens spokesperson praised the company’s pharmacy teams in the statement, noting that they “work tirelessly to serve our communities” across nearly 9,000 stores across the United States. The spokesperson also acknowledged that “the last few years have required unprecedented dedication from our team members.” .”
Walgreens is committed and listens to the concerns of pharmacy staff, the spokesperson said in the statement. Specifically, the company said it has made significant investments in wages and hiring bonuses to retain pharmacists in hard-to-staff locations.
According to employment website Indeed, Walgreens pharmacists earn an average of $57.45 per hour. The company employs more than 86,000 healthcare providers, including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and other healthcare professionals.
Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians work in the company’s U.S. retail pharmacy segment. This division contributes by far the most revenue among its divisions, generating $110 billion in fiscal year 2023.
A CVS employee who was the lead organizer of the Kansas City area strikes confirmed that he had been in contact with the Walgreens organizer to recruit the CVS Pharmacy staff he represents to the nationwide effort. This employee, who also asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, represents CVS pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the Kansas City area.
However, the CVS official said whether those employees join depends on the outcome of a meeting the person has Friday with Prem Shah, the company’s chief pharmacy officer and president of pharmacy and consumer health.
During that meeting, the employee will assess what CVS has done so far to implement a series of changes it committed to following the end of work stoppages in the Kansas City area last month – including increasing staffing and paid overtime.
The CVS employee said if the meeting goes badly, the person will reach out to the Walgreens organizer and inform them that the pharmacy staff they represent will be “100% behind” the nationwide strike effort.
Pharmacy workers involved in the nationwide effort would also hold demonstrations outside stores that workers are leaving, according to people who spoke to CNBC.
Jerominksi said organizers plan to hold rallies in areas where the “largest” turnout in the strike will take place, but no specific locations for stores have been determined yet. He added that rallies were the biggest thing missing from the recent Walgreens and CVS strikes.
In addition to these rallies and walkouts, Jerominski and the Walgreens organizer said they are considering pushing for unionization of pharmacy staff, who are not currently represented by a union. According to Jerominski, the vast majority of pharmacists and technicians at Walgreens and CVS do not have union representation, while pharmacy employees at a handful of grocery retailers such as Kroger do not have union representation.
According to Jerominski, the organizers are in talks with several existing unions, but there is no concrete agreement yet. He said the organizations include IAM Healthcare, a union that represents thousands of health care industry professionals, and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents food, retail and health care workers in the U.S. and Canada.
IAM Healthcare did not immediately respond to a request for comment. UFCW referred CNBC to a statement released Thursday in support of recent strikes by Walgreens and CVS pharmacy workers.
Retail pharmacy staff are concerned that companies like Walgreens and CVS are placing unreasonable demands on their employees without providing them with enough staff or resources to safely and responsibly perform tasks such as filling prescriptions. The staff believes in these working conditions Ultimately, patients are at risk of serious harm.
“What we are doing in our stores is not safe for our customers,” the CVS employee told CNBC. “Improve our working conditions so that we can increase the safety and confidence of our customers coming to our stores.”
In addition to filling and checking prescriptions, pharmacy employees often also have to juggle patient calls, administer a growing number of vaccinations, work with insurance companies on issues like copays and reimbursements, administer rapid Covid and flu tests, and deal with frustrated customers as they come to longer waiting times due to a lack of staff.
New vaccine COMIRNATY® (COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA) from Pfizer available at CVS Pharmacy in Eagle Rock, California.
Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
A technician at a Walgreens pharmacy in Minnesota, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, compared work shifts to running a marathon. They told CNBC that pharmacy staff always go home “completely overworked and exhausted” after a day of juggling dozens of different tasks.
Walgreens pharmacy employees are calling on the company to provide more transparency about how staffing hours are allocated to stores, dedicate training time to each new employee and distribute work assignments to match the staffing levels of a particular store location, according to the organizer Walgreens.
Currently, the company sets task expectations based on the number of team members each pharmacy should have, rather than how many staff the locations actually have, the organizer said.
Pharmacy employees at various chains also hope management can address their concerns more quickly, Jerominski said.
“Pharmacists are kind of on an island where you don’t feel a lot of support,” Jerominski said. “It feels like you’re screaming into the void. You might call a supervisor or a district manager, but you might get an answer a week later.”
A survey from last year shows that pharmacy employees who raise complaints with management sometimes receive little response. The survey conducted by the American Pharmacists Association The National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations noted that there are “no open mechanisms” for pharmacists and other pharmacy staff to discuss workplace issues with supervisors and management.
Some Walgreens pharmacy employees told CNBC that the rollout of new vaccines this fall, including shots for Covid, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, has made their workload heavier than usual.
A pharmacist, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said it was difficult to handle the recent influx of vaccination appointments, especially since these respiratory virus shots all arrived in the U.S. around the same time. The pharmacist described having appointments every 10 minutes and some patients were receiving multiple shots at once.
The pharmacist also described a recent work shift in which he was the only vaccinated person on staff, making it nearly impossible for him to fill prescriptions and perform other tasks.
Jerominski, the pharmacy organizer and advocate, claimed that vaccinations have become a priority for Walgreens and CVS because margins on vaccines are significantly higher than on the average prescription.
A sign promotes COVID-19 (coronavirus) vaccinations at a Walgreens pharmacy in Somerville, Massachusetts, on August 14, 2023.
Brian Snyder | Portal
A Walgreens pharmacist in Colorado, who also requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, also emphasized that employees are increasingly having to deal with frustrated customers.
This pharmacist said the lack of staff and resources at some locations can lead to delays and errors in medication administration or longer wait times for appointments, causing staff to have negative interactions with patients.
The Colorado pharmacist said patients are “rightly upset” when they can’t get essential medications quickly and smoothly. But it can be emotionally draining for staff when patients direct all their anger and frustration at staff, the pharmacist said.
Patients can become aggressive or even violent in rare cases, and banning these customers from a store to protect employees is a “very long process,” the Colorado pharmacist said.