[1/2]A person walks past a CVS Pharmacy in Manhattan, New York, USA, November 15, 2021. Portal/Andrew Kelly/File Photo Acquire License Rights
Oct 30 (Portal) – Some employees at U.S. pharmacies CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) and Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA.O) launched a three-day strike starting on Monday to urge the companies to improve working conditions and more Hiring staff in shops.
The strike, dubbed “Pharmageddon” on social media platforms such as Meta’s Facebook, where it was largely planned, began on Monday and led to the closure of some stores in New York City, two organizers told Portal.
Shane Jerominski, a former Walgreens pharmacist and one of the strike’s organizers, told Portal that up to 5,000 pharmacy employees would walk out over the course of three days, but said the exact number of stores affected and staff participating was unknown The reason not clear is the lack of a union.
He pointed to “severely understaffed” stores where employees not only have to fill prescriptions, but also see appointments and spontaneous vaccination appointments as one of the triggers for the campaign.
In September, some employees at CVS stores in Kansas City went on a two-day strike, while there was another strike at Walgreens stores earlier this month.
Pharmacy employees in New York and Pennsylvania planned to attend, including employees at some Walgreens stores in Duane Reade in New York, he said.
According to social media posts, some pharmacists also planned rallies outside CVS headquarters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island and at Walgreens in Deerfield, Illinois.
Jerominski said organizers also sought better pay and more consistent hours for technicians who find, dispense, package and label prescribed medications for patients under the supervision of pharmacists.
To cut costs following consolidation in the pharmacy industry, large companies have not hired enough pharmacists and technicians in stores, leading to overworked staff, said John August, director of health care labor relations at Cornell University.
“The pandemic has simply created so much extra work and stress that (staff) turnover rates, which were already very high, have just reached extreme epidemic proportions,” he said.
The strike is a sign of a new labor movement in which people organize on their own without a union, August said, adding that such strikes, even if legal, are risky because the workforce “doesn’t really have a traditional union that supports them”. in their strike.
A spokesperson for CVS said its executives have connected with their pharmacists to address concerns directly and have maintained an “ongoing two-way dialogue,” while Walgreens said it has taken steps to help its pharmacy teams “focus on providing “to focus on optimal patient care”.
“Our ongoing efforts are focused on how we recruit, retain and compensate our pharmacy staff,” a Walgreens spokesman told Portal, adding that they have also centralized some operations to reduce pharmacist workloads.
The company announced earlier this month that it had opened its 11th micro-fulfillment center. These are centralized units that fill prescriptions so that “employees can spend more time with customers” to provide other health-related products and services.
The strikes are part of a larger trend of labor unrest across multiple industries, including strikes by auto workers, writers and actors, as well as the largest documented medical workers’ strike by Kaiser Permanente employees earlier this month.
Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Edited by Shinjini Ganguli and Anil D’Silva
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