CVS Walkout

[RXDOC1986]

More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers threaten strike if labor agreement not reached

Kaiser Permanente is the largest nonprofit health-care organization in the U.S. serving nearly 13 million patients.

www.cnbc.com

If this happens I’m not sure if it will make the cvs story look like nothing. Or if it will be a further catalyst for more.

This (almost) happened about 2 years ago. KP pharmacist had threatened to strike in Northern California, over 1000 Pharmacist. Temp agencies were recruiting in many states. We were offered $25K to for 40-80 hrs of work, even if the strike lasted 1 day, you were paid. KP had so much pull in California, they had managed to have the board wave state licensing requirements for the scab pharmacist.
That strike never happened.

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[PharmDBro2017]

I support our brothers in retail that are participating in the walkout.

 

[RxPreceptor]

Cmon WG RPhs…don’t wait, the water is just fine.
We all deserve better working conditions and much more reasonable amounts of resources. In my 20 years in retail pharmacy, this has easily been the worst in terms of work environment from the cluster F of insane hour cuts, back orders galore, more services & metrics (despite hour cuts), vaccine rollout timings, etc.

 

[Sunshine98*]

Let me correct that statement for you DeAngelis, there’s a shortage of pharmacists willing to work for YOU.

Also, anyone else find it hilarious that APhA changed their tune to support the pharmacists now?

They will spin it, wait till after flu season, and 1 by 1 those that did walk out, find a way to fire them. I donated to the KC fund! I hope none of this dies in the wind. News media needs to keep traction on the areas. I hope it GROWS!

APhA is full of ___________. Dropped membership years ago. Bad enough the Kool Aid they feed students.

 

[libra08]

They will spin it, wait till after flu season, and 1 by 1 those that did walk out, find a way to fire them. I donated to the KC fund! I hope none of this dies in the wind. News media needs to keep traction on the areas. I hope it GROWS!

APhA is full of ___________. Dropped membership years ago. Bad enough the Kool Aid they feed students.

Got the gofundme link?

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

Got the gofundme link?

Happy to DM it to you. Dunno if it's against ToS to post here, and there's a random non-RPh admin on this site that has it out for me for some reason.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Happy to DM it to you. Dunno if it's against ToS to post here, and there's a random non-RPh admin on this site that has it out for me for some reason.

And you've identified the problem with this board.

 

[sunnyandseventytwo]

Got the gofundme link?

Pharmacists need donations to miss a few days of work?

 

[RxPreceptor]

Pharmacists need donations to miss a few days of work?

No RPhs, no techs working…I always feel bad for techs, especially the ones who WANT & NEED to work more hours for financial reasons (family support, paying off school debt, etc.)

 

[libra08]

Pharmacists need donations to miss a few days of work?

Why do you care?

 

[rph3664]

https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/article279648674.html

Surprised this hasn’t been brought up yet

I wish I could give this 25 thumbs up. Good for them.

 

[sunnyandseventytwo]

Why do you care?

In general, I'm opposed to gofundmes. I suppose they serve a need that would have been fulfilled by churches a generation or two ago, but they function in an inherently racist and classist manner (the same could probably be said about churches). People fall on hard times all the time, but I guarantee you if you're a cute white woman, your gofundme will do better.

This month I've been hit up for money for a dog that needed surgery (hey, my kids need braces), a doctor's husband who had an MI (seriously you make 300k a year and now you can't afford daycare?), and a neighbor undergoing chemotherapy (that one I felt bad about, but I didn't invent our healthcare system). Speaking of healthcare systems: It's even worse in New Zealand. The government (read the people who elected the government) have decided they're not going to pay $300,000 for a drug that will extend your life seven months. Most people can accept that (and don't know any better anyway). But occasionally there's a good looking physician with a baby on the way who has one wish: to see his child. Guess who gets treatment?

So to answer your question: These pharmacists fall into the category as the physician with the sick husband. Bad times can hit at any time. Have a safety cushion. As for the techs: I seriously doubt most of them are being locked out of work. There aren't any available hours stocking OTCs or cashiering up front?

 

[RxPreceptor]

In general, I'm opposed to gofundmes. I suppose they serve a need that would have been fulfilled by churches a generation or two ago, but they function in an inherently racist and classist manner (the same could probably be said about churches). People fall on hard times all the time, but I guarantee you if you're a cute white woman, your gofundme will do better.

This month I've been hit up for money for a dog that needed surgery (hey, my kids need braces), a doctor's husband who had an MI (seriously you make 300k a year and now you can't afford daycare?), and a neighbor undergoing chemotherapy (that one I felt bad about, but I didn't invent our healthcare system). Speaking of healthcare systems: It's even worse in New Zealand. The government (read the people who elected the government) have decided they're not going to pay $300,000 for a drug that will extend your life seven months. Most people can accept that (and don't know any better anyway). But occasionally there's a good looking physician with a baby on the way who has one wish: to see his child. Guess who gets treatment?

So to answer your question: These pharmacists fall into the category as the physician with the sick husband. Bad times can hit at any time. Have a safety cushion. As for the techs: I seriously doubt most of them are being locked out of work. There aren't any available hours stocking OTCs or cashiering up front?

Yeah, case in point about stealth wealth…putting the PERSONAL back into personal finances. We live in a capitalist society, yet we keep messing up the rules by spreading the wealth around often due to sympathy. Got to draw the line in the sand somewhere

Tech hours have been hit hard with BS quotas…my techs getting 40 hours and doing OT when granted have not been able to do so this year. Most have been cut down to 30 hours to hit budget quotas. When you are full time and cut 10 hours/week with no opportunity to gain more, that hurts after a while.…why do I feel like a response/“solution” is going to be Uber eats/Lyft/other BS deceptive side hustle that isn’t worth doing?

 

[Rouelle]

Did any of you Walgreens folks participate in the walkout today? I heard a fair amount of buzz leading up to it, but today seems pretty quiet.

 

[mentos]

Did anything happen after the Kansas City walkouts? Or is everyone back at work like nothing happened?

 

[DH1987]

I just now heard about it at WAG when I walked in today. The techs are trying to talk me into it, saying they would walk out with me (and of course they would since they can't legally be there without a pharmacist). I won't walk out without notice as that is potentially damaging on my professional reputation and I'm only working part time anyway. But I may very well put in my notice soon. I've got a pretty good financial cushion to fall back on and I've been grinding my coding studies pretty hard.

 

[Sunshine98*]

This profession has been crumbling for years while APHA, BOP's and CHAINS allowed this to happen. Until somehow, someway, if we don't unionize to find OUR voice, working conditions will only continue to deteriorate. And if a union is not the answer, then what is?

 

[mentos]

This profession has been crumbling for years while APHA, BOP's and CHAINS allowed this to happen. Until somehow, someway, if we don't unionize to find OUR voice, working conditions will only continue to deteriorate. And if a union is not the answer, then what is?

Apparently the answer is to get a comp sci degree.

 

[projektreverb]

Apparently the answer is to get a comp sci degree.

Million billion trillion TC bro?

 

[storyhill2]

Nope. In above example, dr office has sent in a new rx for Vimpat that has been ready for five days. Pt who hasn’t taken the med for past three days because they couldn’t afford it and were making financial arrangement to pay for it, comes to pharmacy. But pharmacy now is closed unannounced because of unforeseen strike and they aren’t able to get their med since dr office wouldn’t return the call right away. Pt will now have to go forth day without the med and might end with seizures.

If they do and if they decide to complain to board, I can see them siding with the patient. Despite it was pt, who couldn’t make arrangement in a timely manner, board would look at it like a vulnerable pt was put under risk because pharmacist decided to walk out during their scheduled duty.

The is always a trip to the ED. We get patients like this all of the time. They just need a dose of their medication they don't have.

 

[PharmtoCS]

Apparently the answer is to get a comp sci degree.

What's hopefully happening is that people are voting with their feet and money by not taking $200k+ in loans to go to pharmacy school to become fodder for the chains.

We do need a union still, though.

 

[pharmdeep]

I just now heard about it at WAG when I walked in today. The techs are trying to talk me into it, saying they would walk out with me (and of course they would since they can't legally be there without a pharmacist). I won't walk out without notice as that is potentially damaging on my professional reputation and I'm only working part time anyway. But I may very well put in my notice soon. I've got a pretty good financial cushion to fall back on and I've been grinding my coding studies pretty hard.

u making the switch ? what are you using for studies ? I actually started thinking man whats another 4 years of school if i could work remotely anywhere in the world...of course it usually just ends at "thinking about it" lol

 

[knight on horse]

The entire district shares the same queue. Once a script is typed in, it goes to the cloud to be verified against the original Rx. Then it gets counted. A picture is taken of what was counted by the tech. It goes to the cloud to be visually verified against the photo the tech took. So it is possible that the RPh in the store might never look at the script that you fill at your local CVS.

It's going to eliminate overlap completely, I imagine

Imagining this sort of thing is the job I should have. Alas, it happened already, i'm getting older, blah blah blah, and I feel for any problems this may cause for our frontline staff

I must think on this

 

[knight on horse]

I am sure there are countless CVS pharmacists that would be delighted by that arrangement. I probably would have been myself when I worked for them.

Work from home is great, but probably not as a pharmacist. There will be quotas