Two CVS locations in Rhode Island have made the move to join the Pharmacy Guild, an organization striving to build a nationwide pharmacy union. Located in the vicinity of CVS Health’s headquarters in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the stores in Wakefield and Westerly have filed petitions to join the Pharmacy Guild, according to USA Today.
The stores are both 24-hour pharmacies, with approximately five pharmacists in each who are reported to be severely overworked. According to Shane Jerominski, a pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, these locations deal with nearly 7,000 prescriptions weekly. Such a high workload places significant pressure on a small team of pharmacists and potentially risks patients’ lives.
These CVS locations join an Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas as the third and fourth locations to file petitions with the Pharmacy Guild. Omnicare, also owned by CVS, made its filing in late March 2024. The petitions only include pharmacists at present, but it is expected that pharmacy technicians will soon join.
After a petition is filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency enforcing U.S. labor law, a date may be set for an election. This election certifies or decertifies a union as the bargaining representative of a group of employees, according to the NLRB website. Those voting yes to unionizing by more than 50% can then be represented by the Pharmacy Guild. An election has already been scheduled for the Las Vegas location on April 24, 2024.
In response to these developments, the executive director of corporate communications at CVS Health, Michael DeAngelis, commented that they respect their employees’ right to either unionize or refrain. DeAngelo highlighted their belief in a direct, two-way relationship with their colleagues to resolve workplace concerns and acknowledged that they continually take into account feedback from their employees to guide their programs and policies. CVS has invested about $1 billion in wage increases since 2021, with plans to distribute tens of millions of dollars in bonuses to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in 2024.
Launched in November following a series of walkouts among Walgreens and CVS employees, the Pharmacy Guild has been working in partnership with IAM Healthcare, a diverse union of healthcare professionals including nurses, medical administrators, and lab technicians, to build the first national pharmacy union in the U.S. The Pharmacy Guild has several key demands, including better wages and secure hours for pharmacy technicians, improved workloads for pharmacists, and mandatory staffing requirements. The Guild plans to file a petition for a pharmacy location every week or two for the next few months, with a broader goal to have the majority of community practice pharmacies unionized within five years.
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