Prescriptions Potentially Delayed as CVS and Walgreens Workers Go On Strike

Customers may be unable to pick up their medications this week as CVS and Walgreens pharmacy workers once again go on strike. This week marks an additional round of walkouts at stores across the country as pharmacy employees ask for higher pay and improved working conditions. Pharmacists organized the walkout event after several Kansas City CVS employees left their stores earlier in the month, but this new wave of walkouts has been deemed "Pharmageddon." At Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid, employees will call in sick from Monday through Wednesday, organizers say. "Many pharmacy workers in small business pharmacies and other sites wish to express solidarity with the very real patient safety concerns of the striking pharmacists and technicians, even though they have safe working conditions in their own practices," past Walgreens pharmacist Shane Jerominski, who is at the head of many of the organizations, said on LinkedIn. On Jerominski's Facebook page, The Accidental Pharmacist, more than 2,000 individuals said they were committed to the cause, while nearly 1,500 said they would join the walkout as long as hundreds to thousands of others were involved in the protests.

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The workers' demands range from guaranteed hours and better pay to having more control over scheduling to ensure their stores are better staffed and there's less likely to be an error in medications for patient safety. Still, Walgreens said only two of their locations out of nearly 9,000 experienced workforce disruptions Monday. "We recognize the incredible work our pharmacists do every day, especially this time of year when there is increased demand for their services across communities," the company told Newsweek in a statement. "Our leaders are in our pharmacies regularly, listening to concerns and frustrations and responding to feedback. We have taken steps over the last two years to improve pharmacists' experience, advance the profession and enable them to provide the high value care they were trained to do. Nearly all of our 25,000 pharmacists continue to serve their customers and communities this week, and we thank them for it." CVS also said that so far this week there haven't been any unplanned pharmacy closures. "We're serving patients across our footprint today and we're not seeing any unusual activity regarding unplanned pharmacy closures or pharmacist walkouts," the company said in a statement. "We're committed to providing access to consistent, safe, high-quality health care to the patients and communities we serve and are engaging in a continuous two-way dialogue with our pharmacists to directly address any concerns they have." CVS also said that the company is taking in recent feedback from pharmacy teams to make "targeted investments to address their key concerns." This includes allowing teams to schedule additional support as needed, enhancing pharmacist and technician recruitment and hiring and improving the pharmacy technician training. "Our goal is to develop a sustainable and scalable action plan to support both our pharmacists and our customers so we can continue delivering the high-quality care our patients depend on," the company said in a statement.

What Led To The Walkouts

So far in 2023, there have been 312 strikes in the United States involving around 453,000 workers, according to data from Cornell University. Cris Grossmann, author of The Rise of the Frontline Worker and Beekeeper CEO and co-founder said the strikes at CVS and Walgreens reflect a deeper need for managers to connect with and understand their employees' lived experiences, especially for frontline pharmacy workers. "It's no surprise to see labor movements continue to flare across the United States," Grossmann told Newsweek. "[At] too many companies, management does not take the time to understand the needs and mindset of their workforce. And how could they? Many still use old-fashioned systems that rob managers of insight into their workers' day-to-day realities." When it comes to the pharmacy chains that will get themselves out of the continuing walkout situation, it will come down to those that aren't afraid to embrace change and better ways of working, Grossmann said. "The leaders that invest in a more connected workforce will thrive," he told Newsweek. "Those that stick with the status quo can expect more disgruntled and disengaged employees." Until many of the issues are resolved at the drug store giants' pharmacies, workers anticipate more walkouts to come. "Our stores are still thousands of prescriptions behind. Our patients are still going days, weeks or even months without their needed medicine. And they're pretending that there's not a problem," an anonymous pharmacist leading the walkouts earlier in the month told FOX Business. "Until they acknowledge that there's an actual problem and work to address the actual problem...we have to keep pushing." "In an industry where a missed decimal point, a missed number or a letter could mean life or death for a patient, it really becomes a dangerous situation when you're understaffed and overworked," they said.