Wednesday marked the end of a planned three-day strike by mostly non-union workers at the nation’s leading pharmacy chains over staffing shortages and other longstanding issues. The mass worker action, referred to as Pharmageddon on social media, threatened to shut down operations at Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid locations for the third time this year…but according to the companies themselves, the strike’s impact was largely negligible.
Ahead of the demonstration, which began on Monday, workers at major pharmacies across the country pledged to call in sick in protest of unreasonable working conditions and demanding schedules. The work stoppage followed on the heels of a similar protest by employees at dozens of Walgreens locations in early October and a walkout that shut down 12 CVS stores in Kansas in late September. In all three cases, the primary demand has not been higher pay but rather relief from staff shortages and increasing workloads.
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According to Pharmageddon organizers online, pharmacies were short-staffed even before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the lockdown-era workforce disruptions definitely made the problem worse. Since then, the daily responsibilities of pharmacists have expanded to include patient consultations and administering regular vaccines, increasing the odds of mistakes in filling prescriptions.
As one anonymous protest participant told Fox Business, “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. Until they acknowledge that there’s an actual problem and work to address the actual problem…we have to keep pushing.”
The movement also drew support from the American Pharmacists Association, which put out a statement of solidarity.
The exact number of strike participants was not immediately clear, but more than 2,000 pharmacy workers had previously expressed intent to join in the movement.
However, as the strike wound to a close on Wednesday, CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and other major chains reported little to no disruption to overall operations. Walgreens said that only two of its 8,701 pharmacies were closed on Monday and only one remained closed on Tuesday. No locations were reported closed on Wednesday. CVS likewise reported no unusual activity or closures at its 9,000 stores.
Despite the relatively low impact of “Pharmageddon” on daily operations, the pharmacy chains indicated that they are still listening to employees’ concerns.
“We recognize the incredible work our pharmacists and technicians do every day and have taken a number of steps in our pharmacies to ensure that our teams can concentrate on providing optimal patient care,” Walgreens said in a statement.
“In response to recent feedback from our pharmacy teams, we’re making targeted investments to address their key concerns, including enabling teams to schedule additional support as needed, enhancing pharmacist and technician recruitment and hiring, and strengthening pharmacy technician training,” read a statement from CVS.
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