Emily Le Coz | April 12, 2024
Pharmacists decrying worsening working conditions are gaining momentum in their national effort to unionize as two CVS stores in the company’s home state of Rhode Island prepare to file petitions Friday to join the newly created Pharmacy Guild.
They become the second and third sites to officially seek membership in the guild. A CVS-owned Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas filed the first petition in late March.
Both of the Rhode Island pharmacies are 24-hour, standalone CVS stores in the southern part of the state – one is Wakefield; the other in Westerly – each about an hour from the company’s corporate headquarters in the Providence suburb of Woonsocket. The two stores have about nine pharmacists between them; other staff at the locations, including pharmacy technicians, are not part of the filings, organizers told USA TODAY.
“These stores are in CVS’ own backyard, and they had an overwhelming majority of pharmacists on board to file,” said Shane Jerominski, a California pharmacist and one of the founding members of The Pharmacy Guild. “If that many pharmacists in CVS’s backyard feel unsafe and not supported by management, that speaks volumes about what the rest of the stores look like across the country.”
Read more at USAToday.com