A small number of employees and supporters picket outside the headquarters of drugstore chain Walgreens during a three-day walkout by pharmacists in Deerfield, Illinois, November 1, 2023.
Vincent Alban | Reuters
The organizers of a recent retail pharmacy staff walkout are helping to launch a national push to organize those employees on Wednesday, a potential step to wide-scale unionization of thousands of pharmacists and technicians across the U.S. for the first time.
A new partnership between the organizers and IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – aims to help pharmacy staff unionize to address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry, including at major drugstore chains such as Walgreens and CVS.
The push to unionize, dubbed “The Pharmacy Guild,” also calls for legislative and regulatory change to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients.
Notably, the vast majority of pharmacists and technicians from Walgreens and CVS have no union representation, while pharmacy staff from a handful of grocery retailers such as Kroger do, according to Shane Jerominski, a walkout organizer who is helping to launch the effort through his pharmacy advocacy platform on social media, The Accidental Pharmacist.
The push to organize staff who aren’t currently represented by a union only adds to what has been one of the most active years for the U.S. labor movement in recent history.
A spokesperson for CVS said Wednesday that the company is engaging in a “continuous two-way dialogue” with pharmacists to directly address their concerns, and is making some changes in response to recent feedback.
CVS has productive relationships with unions who represent its employees and “respect our employees’ right to either unionize or refrain from doing so,” the spokesperson added.
A spokesperson for Walgreens previously told CNBC that the company has taken several steps in its pharmacies “to ensure that our teams can concentrate on providing optimal patient care.” Both Walgreens and CVS also said last week that the walkout of their pharmacy staff last week had a minimal impact on their pharmacy operations.
Jerominski said the new partnership specifically allows pharmacy staff who are interested in unionizing to fill out a public form on a new website, which will ask for their name, employer, pharmacy location, contact information and message they want to…
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