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Workers at some of the country’s largest pharmacy chains, from CVS to Walgreens, have planned another “strike” starting Monday as they continue to call for better working conditions.
They call it “Pharmageddon,” Shane Jerominski, a licensed pharmacist for over a decade who is helping coordinate the recent protests, told FOX Business.
Jerominski said employees at Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid have committed to calling in sick Monday through Wednesday. It follows a protest earlier this month when Walgreens employees called in sick at 200 of its nearly 9,000 locations. Shortly before that, CVS employees at at least a dozen stores in Kansas failed to show up for work in a separate strike.
Jerominski says workers are demanding a number of things to ease the onslaught of duties they’ve taken on in recent years. The biggest demands include guaranteed working hours and better pay for technicians. They also want pharmacists and pharmacy managers to have a direct say in scheduling appointments.
The hope is that these changes will lead to better staffing levels in branches, improve work-life balance and reduce errors that they say could impact patient safety.
WALGREENS PHARMACISTS CONCERN ABOUT WORKING CONDITIONS
“We are a force to be reckoned with, and we demand more from those who see us and those we care about suffer,” said a letter from “pharmaggedon” organizers to Walgreens employees .
According to Jerominski, it is difficult to say how many people will be involved in this latest action. However, according to a poll posted on his social media page “The Accidental Pharmacist,” over 2,000 people said, “I’m all for it, no matter what.”
Another 1,442 people said they would participate as long as “hundreds to thousands of pharmacists and technicians” participate, according to screenshots of the survey seen by FOX Business.
A pharmacist works at a computer workstation for Walgreens in Oak Park, Illinois, on December 20, 2011. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via / Getty Images)
In addition to urging people to call in sick, Jerominski is also trying to organize protests outside CVS and Walgreens headquarters this week to make her movement more visible.
Jerominski does not see himself as the main organizer of these efforts. However, he believes he is in a good position to help because of the reach of his social media account and his experience as a pharmacist for Walgreens and CVS before moving to an independent retail pharmacy later in his career.
Accidental Pharmacist’s Facebook page has 122,000 followers, most of whom are pharmacists, technicians and other healthcare workers. Jerominksi says he “constantly receives direct messages about working conditions.”
WALGREENS EMPLOYEES PLANNING STRIKE OVER WORKING CONDITIONS AT PHARMACY: SOURCE
The pharmacist who organized the first walkout at Walgreens earlier this month and spoke to FOX Business on condition of anonymity previously warned that workers would escalate the matter with a pharmacy-wide protest if their issues were not addressed.
A bilingual COVID-19 vaccine check-in sign at Walgreens in Miami Beach, Florida. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via / Getty Images)
The problem is that large pharmacy chains have not been able to staff their stores and pharmacies effectively. At the same time, they have increased the number of vaccination appointments, which has caused pharmacies to fall behind in issuing prescriptions, said the pharmacist.
“Our stores are still backlogged with thousands of prescriptions. Our patients still have to go days, weeks or even months without the medication they need. And they act like there’s no problem,” the pharmacist told FOX Business on Friday. “Until they recognize that there is an actual problem and work to address the real problem … we have to keep pushing.”
A customer at a Rite Aid store in New York on October 16, 2023. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg via / Getty Images)
Jerominksi said he has also heard about this problem from other workers. He also reviewed internal documents from some CVS stores seen by FOX Business that indicated they had a week’s backlog.
“It could take forever for a patient to get their medication,” he said.
But that’s only part of the problem, says Jerominski.
“Any time the pharmacist stops filling control prescriptions, there is a risk of an error,” he said.
The pharmacist who organized the Walgreens strike agrees, before telling FOX Business: “In an industry where a missing decimal point, a forgotten number or a wrong letter can mean life or death for a patient “It really becomes a dangerous situation when you’re understaffed and overworked.”
| ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVS | CVS HEALTH CORP. | 66.29 | -1.69 | -2.49% |
| WBA | WALGREENS BOOTS ALLIANCE INC. | 21.14 | -0.56 | -2.58% |
Both the pharmacist and Jerominski said the vaccines are a priority because margins are higher.
“It used to only be during flu season, but now it’s year-round, whether it’s COVID boosters or RSV,” Jerominski said.
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Given the growing problems in the industry, a spokesperson for Rite Aid told FOX Business that the company is committed to “creating safe, productive and supportive work environments for all of our employees, including our dedicated pharmacists who serve our communities with vaccines and Recipes.” and daily guidance on holistic health.”
The company says the company’s efforts in recent years and months to improve the work-life balance and working conditions for pharmacists are “a testament to our commitment to the team.”
A customer at the checkout line at a CVS pharmacy. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via / Getty Images)
A spokesperson for CVS said it is not seeing any “unusual activity related to unplanned pharmacy closures or pharmacist strikes” and is working with its pharmacists to address their concerns directly.
The spokesperson added that the company is working to develop a “scalable action plan to support both our pharmacists and our customers, which can be implemented in markets where support may be needed.”
Walgreens says it has taken “numerous steps across our pharmacies to ensure our teams can focus on providing optimal patient care.” This includes improving technology and centralizing many operations to maintain a “reasonable workload.”
Still, the company noted that it remains focused on the way it recruits, retains and rewards pharmacy staff.