Employees of seven CVS pharmacies in Southern California went on strike to demand better pay and health care — the latest sign of turmoil at the company whose CEO recently resigned amid store closures and a plummeting stock.
Workers at four stores in Los Angeles and three others in Orange County walked off the job on Friday — though the locations remained open as managers and nonunion employees staffed the pharmacies.
Striking workers outside one of the Los Angeles locations told customers not to cross the picket line.
Workers planned to continue picketing until negotiations resume Wednesday.
The strike was authorized by a vote of the two local United Food and Commercial Workers unions involved on Sept. 29, with more than 90% in favor.
“We’re disappointed that our UFCW member colleagues have gone on strike at a few select locations in the Los Angeles area,” company spokesperson Amy Thibault told Associated Press in a statement.
Thibault said CVS has made progress on getting to a final contract and reached “tentative agreements” to raise pay and increase the company’s health insurance contributions.
Melissa Acosta, a pharmacy technician who is on the negotiating committee, accused CVS of “intimidating workers, observing them, getting in the way of them speaking to union representatives.”
Acosta told AP that the cost of insurance that CVS offers is too high, so she enrolled in the state-run program Covered California.
“In my nine years of working with CVS, I’ve never been able to afford their health care plan,” she said.
CVS is one of three large pharmacy chains that have been sued by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies.
CVS pharmacy technicians, who are required to complete an extensive training program and satisfy licensing requirements, currently make $24.90 an hour after five years on the job, according to the union.
Carlos Alfaro, a technician who joined the strike, said stores are understaffed as the flu season begins.
“We have to call (patients) constantly to get flu shots, push vaccines,” Alfaro said. “This is a lot of extra work we’re expected to do, on top of filling medications at the pharmacy.”
Many stores have increasingly locked up items as an anti-shoplifting measure, forcing customers to get assistance from employees. Workers say that further exacerbates the understaffing problem.
“There are so many customers that don’t get help and have to constantly wait to get something unlocked,” said Acosta.
“They think we just don’t want to help them, when in reality the company doesn’t give us adequate staffing to be able to provide excellent customer service.”
Workers are also asking for better store security, among other demands.
Last week, CVS announced that Karen Lynch would be stepping down as CEO and that David Joyner, the company’s longtime executive, would be filling the role.
CVS made the change in response to pressure from Glenview Capital, the activist investor that has been agitating for the company to take action in the face of its lagging stock.
News of the change sent shares of the company down by more than 5%.
CVS stock is down by nearly half from its 2022 highs, in part due to quarter after quarter of repeated profit forecast cuts related to rising costs in its large health care insurance business and competition for its vast network of retail pharmacies.
CVS also announced recently that it would cut nearly 3,000 jobs nationwide.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
