Pharmacy workers at eight CVS stores across Rhode Island, Arizona, and California voted this week in favor of a strike sanction, a move that puts unionized employees one step closer to walking off the job over what they describe as chronic understaffing and burnout. The vote is the first of two approvals needed before workers can actually strike, and it comes after two years of stalled contract talks between the company and The Pharmacy Guild.
The eight locations include four stores in Rhode Island — CVS’s home state — along with sites in Arizona and California, according to The Boston Globe. The Pharmacy Guild, an initiative launched under IAM Healthcare, organized these CVS workers roughly two years before this week’s vote. CVS has said there will be no interruption of pharmacy service at affected stores if union members ultimately approve a work stoppage.
Sara Martin, a 43-year-old CVS pharmacist in Westerly, R.I. who has worked for the company since 2008, is typically the only pharmacist on duty during her shifts. She told the Globe that in 2020 she took a two-month mental health leave, and described an incident in which she became incapacitated at work and called her manager for backup — but the manager never came, so she stayed at the pharmacy to keep it open for patients.
Workers Describe a Widening Gap Between Duties and Staffing
Pharmacists are expected to move prescriptions quickly while simultaneously handling vaccinations, insurance issues, patient questions, physician calls, and technician supervision, per the same Globe account. The Pharmacy Guild has alleged that pharmacists sometimes spend less than a minute reviewing each prescription, a claim CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault called false…