Drugstore workers are pressing for better working conditions and wages in the second such labor action this month.
By Aaron Gregg, Lisa Rein and Jaclyn Peiser, The Washington PostA sign marks a CVS branch on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, in Pasadena, California.
“After years and years of trying to get the attention of the corporations about those issues, their inability to respond properly and their skillful ways to shift blame and lie to the public about the true essence of their practices, which have eventually led to this public crisis and unsafe conditions, employees really had enough,” said Bled Tanoe, a former Walgreens pharmacist who is helping to coordinate the walkouts.
Pharmacy workers say poor working conditions and understaffing are putting employees and patients at risk, with increased demands on staffers becoming untenable and preventing them from doing their jobs properly.They are requesting that pharmacies hire more workers, establish mandatory training hours, offer better transparency in how payroll hours are assigned to stores and provide advance notice when staff will be cut or when a position opens.
Walgreens spokesman Fraser Engerman said company leaders are in pharmacies regularly, listening to concerns and responding to feedback. The company has numerous ongoing efforts focused on how to recruit, retain and reward staffers, he said. In addition to the Walgreens walkout earlier this month, pharmacy employees at CVS stores in the Kansas City area walked off the job in September.
Amid these pressures, some of the country’s largest drugstore chains have announced closures of hundreds of stores, leaving many low-income communities without desperately needed pharmacy services. They’re also facing additional competition from online retailers, as well as from Walmart, which announced a $9 billion investment Monday that includes larger pharmacies with private screening rooms for patients.
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