Mohammad Khursheed/Reuters
Walgreens employees are planning walkouts to protest working conditions, according to news reports.An organizer told CNN that pharmacists are stressed out over unrealistic performance requirements.The walkouts could take place next week.
Hundreds of pharmacists and other employees at one of the country’s largest drug store chains could walk out of the job on Monday to protest what they say are increasingly miserable working conditions, according to multiple news reports.
“We don’t believe that Walgreens is allowing us to give our patients safe care on a daily basis,” an organizer of the labor action told CNN.
At issue is working conditions for those in the pharmacy section of Walgreens — in particular, pharmacists complain they are being asked to juggle too many responsibilities, asked not just to fill prescriptions but to provide flu shots and other vaccines.
“I spend almost all of my day in the shot room, and if I’m not in the shot room, I’m filling prescriptions because we’re so behind,” one worker told CNN.
The planned walkouts, also reported by Fox News, are set to take place October 9-11. It comes after similar actions last month at CVS stores, where pharmacists likewise complain that staffing cuts have left them overburdened.
Walgreens operates nearly 9,000 stores across the United States.
Neither the company nor the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents thousands of Walgreens employees, immediately responded to requests for comment.
However, in a statement to Reuters, Walgreens said it is taking steps to improve working conditions.
“We are making significant investments in pharmacist wages and hiring bonuses to attract/retain talent in harder-to-staff locations,” it said.