The CVS Pharmacy logo is seen on a sign above a CVS Health Corp. store on February 7, 2024. in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
A CVS in Las Vegas is the first location to join a new national pharmacy union. It’s a milestone as organizers try to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers deal with what they call unsafe working conditions.
Nearly 30 pharmacy employees at the CVS Omnicare store in Las Vegas won their union election Thursday in a landslide of 87% to 13%. Its pharmacists and pharmacy technicians write prescriptions for elderly and other vulnerable patients in long-term care facilities throughout Nevada.
These workers will now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.
“We will try to get a best-in-class contract for these people who trust our union to represent them. “It’s a historic victory and a very decisive one,” Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of The Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.
Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide pharmacy worker strike teamed up with IAM Healthcare — a union representing thousands of health care workers — to form The Pharmacy Guild in November. The late October walkout, which organizers called “Pharmageddon,” affected major drugstore chains such as CVS, Walgreens And Rite Aid and drew media attention to the extent of workers’ concerns.
Like the strike effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff deal with what many employees describe as unsafe staffing and increasing workloads across the industry, putting both employees and patients at risk. The guild is also calling for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients.
The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy workers, who often struggle with understaffed teams and rising 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.
In a statement, a CVS spokesperson said the company respects its employees’ rights to organize or refrain from unionizing, including Omnicare Las Vegas employees’ decision to seek union representation. The company added that it will work “closely and collaboratively” with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is “committed to creating a positive and rewarding work environment.”
Omnicare, which CVS acquired in 2015, is not a public pharmacy like most of the chain’s nearly 10,000 stores. According to CVS’s website, Omnicare pharmacies are located in 49 states.
But Omnicare and other pharmacies face the same problems, ranging from staffing shortages to low starting salaries for technicians, Jerominski said.
“It’s not specific to Omnicare, the issues they expressed were the same issues I hear across the country. It’s ubiquitous in all the major chains,” Jerominski said. “You can only ask a company for support for a certain amount of time… That’s why the work stoppages happened. They finally said, ‘No, we’re going to get the help we’re asking for.'”
The Pharmacy Guild will now work to reach a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare employees in Las Vegas. Jerominski said these employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round
“You can’t retain people with special skills and families, especially given the level of stress that comes with this job, if you don’t even guarantee them just their 40 hours,” Jerominski told CNBC.
The Pharmacy Guild is also experiencing increasing momentum in other parts of the country. According to Jerominski, pharmacy employees at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they have applied for union membership with the guild.
CVS’s headquarters are in the state.
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2024-04-26 18:02:40
www.cnbc.com
