How can Pharmacists Fight Back??

[Lyric9059]

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In the past 1 year, Walmar’s Stock has almost doubled. They beat earnings easily in the last quarter and our president has given them billions of tax cuts. The economy is supposedly great and Walmart is making a ton of money and is buying a bunch of companies here and there.

During this period of time, you would think that Walmart will appreciate its staff and pharmacist. But that did they do? They fired 40% of their pharmacists. People that have given their lives to this company. They are cutting hours left and right, denying raised and cutting bonuses. One could ask, if they are doing this during this economic boom, what will they do during the next recession?

Thus far, pharmacists have remained timid and indolent and flat out indifferent. We have all assumed that it will never get to us, but it looks like this last one got our attention and a lot of people are asking,” what can we do?” Well that is what I plan on answering here.

1. We need to force them to decrease class sizes. How do we achieve this? Do we need to send more money to uslesss organizations like Apha and Ashp etc? Absolutely not! We can however tear our preceptor licenses into pieces! The moment there is a scarcity of Preceptors, pharmacy schools will decrease classroom sizes immediately. You can do this right now. Go and grab it and tear it. Don’t renew it. Close up shop. You would get the attention of the greedy idiots that own these schools by so doing.

2. Contact your legislators and congress. Very recently, Texas abolished the plumbers board. They got together, they spoke up, they got on the news and within weeks, it was restored. Let us directly complain to and force our state boards or whoever to re-instate the pharmacist : Pharmact tech ratio. It was 1:3, but they changed it to 1 Pharmacist to unlimited amount of techs. Ordinarily you would expect something like this if there was a shortage of pharmacist. But in this case, there is an excess of pharmacist. So there was absolutely no sensible explanation besides corruption or bribery by big chains. Let us bombard our state board with calls.

3. We should be able to sue pharmacy schools for the deception and lies. It should be illegal to charge 100-200k for a profession where no one gets 80hrs. New grads should get deferrement till they can get 80hrs.

4. Make more videos. Speak up! Blog away! Share these threads.

5. Get together and sue your stateboard. They no longer represent us.

6. Do not renew your Apha membership. Boycott the mid year conference. We need these organizations to feel our pain. They need to earn the money we pay. They haven’t delivered so far. Apha keeps making trainings and videos that they use to train techs to replace. Apha need to make it clear that their trainings cannot he used for anybody that isn’t a pharmacist.

Please suggest more and more ideas in this thread. We need to fight back. We can build an online coalition without forming a union.

 

[Timbo]

I've said this once before but one thing we can easily do is force pharmacy school to conduct surveys of their graduating classes' employment status and publish them publicly. Many schools keep these surveys secret, but from speaking with recent grads and current students, I feel like unemployment upon graduation this year is significantly higher than it was last year.

 

[mentos]

I've said this once before but one thing we can easily do is force pharmacy school to conduct surveys of their graduating classes' employment status and publish them publicly. Many schools keep these surveys secret, but from speaking with recent grads and current students, I feel like unemployment upon graduation this year is significantly higher than it was last year.

They will manipulate the numbers. "99% of students surveyed got jobs!". Well guess what, only 50 students out of 150 responded to the survey. Those who are unemployed are too embarrassed to admit it. 15 of them got a residency which doesn't count as a job. Another 20 are part time or per diem. Less than 5 got full time, 80 hours and didn't have to move to BFE. The rest resorted to non-pharmacist jobs such as servers, Uber, Starbucks etc.

 

[DagS132]

lol, just let one of those big youtube channels that does documentaries cover this story. Call it a scandal or something and they will bite

 

[alpha12]

In the past 1 year, Walmar’s Stock has almost doubled. They beat earnings easily in the last quarter and our president has given them billions of tax cuts. The economy is supposedly great and Walmart is making a ton of money and is buying a bunch of companies here and there.

During this period of time, you would think that Walmart will appreciate its staff and pharmacist. But that did they do? They fired 40% of their pharmacists. People that have given their lives to this company. They are cutting hours left and right, denying raised and cutting bonuses. One could ask, if they are doing this during this economic boom, what will they do during the next recession?

I don't get it. Why do you think they owe their pharmacists anything because the stock doubled? Also was this increase in stock value due to pharmacy, which from what I hear is declining in revenue? Walmart and other pharmacies paid their pharmacists top dollar when they needed them. Now they don't. Can't have it both ways. That's the way free markets work. Eventually your job might become obsolete. If i drive a taxi, I can't complain to the govt that uber is stealing my business.

 

[RxRunner]

I've said this once before but one thing we can easily do is force pharmacy school to conduct surveys of their graduating classes' employment status and publish them publicly. Many schools keep these surveys secret, but from speaking with recent grads and current students, I feel like unemployment upon graduation this year is significantly higher than it was last year.

I've seen as high as 60% unemployment from other threads, no one seems to know the true number because schools count residency as employment

 

[Timbo]

I've seen as high as 60% unemployment from other threads, no one seems to know the true number because schools count residency as employment

They will manipulate the numbers. "99% of students surveyed got jobs!". Well guess what, only 50 students out of 150 responded to the survey. Those who are unemployed are too embarrassed to admit it. 15 of them got a residency which doesn't count as a job. Another 20 are part time or per diem. Less than 5 got full time, 80 hours and didn't have to move to BFE. The rest resorted to non-pharmacist jobs such as servers, Uber, Starbucks etc.

That's why it should be a standardized survey in which you would have to answer setting of practice, part time vs full time, residency vs staff position, % response, etc

 

[Lyric9059]

I don't get it. Why do you think they owe their pharmacists anything because the stock doubled? Also was this increase in stock value due to pharmacy, which from what I hear is declining in revenue? Walmart and other pharmacies paid their pharmacists top dollar when they needed them. Now they don't. Can't have it both ways. That's the way free markets work. Eventually your job might become obsolete. If i drive a taxi, I can't complain to the govt that uber is stealing my business.

I would explain to you what profit sharing is and how other companies are increasing bonuses and raises because the company is doing well, but then you would find another shadow to chase.

 

[Lyric9059]

lol, just let one of those big youtube channels that does documentaries cover this story. Call it a scandal or something and they will bite

Forward the thread to any of the bloggers you know.

 

[alpha12]

There is always a ***** that chases the Shadow while missing the substance. I would explain to you what profit sharing is and how other companies are increasing bonuses and raises because the company is doing well, but then you would find another shadow to chase.

The company might be but the pharmacy isn't. You don't get it. Just because a company does well, doesn't mean it can't get rid of unprofitable divisions.

 

[mentos]

There is always a ***** that chases the Shadow while missing the substance. I would explain to you what profit sharing is and how other companies are increasing bonuses and raises because the company is doing well, but then you would find another shadow to chase.

Can you please explain what other companies are increasing bonuses and raises? Last I heard Walgreens hasn't given a raise or bonus in two years. Also isn't pharmacy profit at an all time low? If there's no profit how can they share it? Much appreciated!

 

[olabrador23]

In the past 1 year, Walmar’s Stock has almost doubled. They beat earnings easily in the last quarter and our president has given them billions of tax cuts. The economy is supposedly great and Walmart is making a ton of money and is buying a bunch of companies here and there.

During this period of time, you would think that Walmart will appreciate its staff and pharmacist. But that did they do? They fired 40% of their pharmacists. People that have given their lives to this company. They are cutting hours left and right, denying raised and cutting bonuses. One could ask, if they are doing this during this economic boom, what will they do during the next recession?

Thus far, pharmacists have remained timid and indolent and flat out indifferent. We have all assumed that it will never get to us, but it looks like this last one got our attention and a lot of people are asking,” what can we do?” Well that is what I plan on answering here.

1. We need to force them to decrease class sizes. How do we achieve this? Do we need to send more money to uslesss organizations like Apha and Ashp etc? Absolutely not! We can however tear our preceptor licenses into pieces! The moment there is a scarcity of Preceptors, pharmacy schools will decrease classroom sizes immediately. You can do this right now. Go and grab it and tear it. Don’t renew it. Close up shop. You would get the attention of the greedy idiots that own these schools by so doing.

2. Contact your legislators and congress. Very recently, Texas abolished the plumbers board. They got together, they spoke up, they got on the news and within weeks, it was restored. Let us directly complain to and force our state boards or whoever to re-instate the pharmacist : Pharmact tech ratio. It was 1:3, but they changed it to 1 Pharmacist to unlimited amount of techs. Ordinarily you would expect something like this if there was a shortage of pharmacist. But in this case, there is an excess of pharmacist. So there was absolutely no sensible explanation besides corruption or bribery by big chains. Let us bombard our state board with calls.

3. We should be able to sue pharmacy schools for the deception and lies. It should be illegal to charge 100-200k for a profession where no one gets 80hrs. New grads should get deferrement till they can get 80hrs.

4. Make more videos. Speak up! Blog away! Share these threads.

5. Get together and sue your stateboard. They no longer represent us.

6. Do not renew your Apha membership. Boycott the mid year conference. We need these organizations to feel our pain. They need to earn the money we pay. They haven’t delivered so far. Apha keeps making trainings and videos that they use to train techs to replace. Apha need to make it clear that their trainings cannot he used for anybody that isn’t a pharmacist.

Please suggest more and more ideas in this thread. We need to fight back. We can build an online coalition without forming a union.

I suggest similar ideas in the thread, "Yes, we chose Pharmacy". I still think union is a good idea. Speaking with ONE voice and in large numbers gives you bigger power and leverage in negotiating and / or making deals or changes.

Also, the current pharmacy associations and accreditation bodies seem to be corrupted (at the top) and no longer represent the majority of pharmacists and pharmacy students. Imho, sometimes it is better to tear a house down and build a new one instead of trying to fix it. Found new groups that you actually are in control and represent the majority of pharmacists and pharmacy students. Abandon memberships in the old ones that are no longer working for you.

 

[PharmtoCS]

This thread belongs in the Pharmacy forum.

We don't need to recruit more fighters from the Pre-Pharm group as most of them will try to save themselves first instead of the profession when they're drowing in $200k+ student debt.

 

[Lyric9059]

The company might be but the pharmacy isn't. You don't get it. Just because a company does well, doesn't mean it can't get rid of unprofitable divisions.

Which side are you on? You are really reaching to making a very silly point. Is the pharmacy not part of the company?

 

[deleted480308]

There is always a ***** that chases the Shadow while missing the substance. I would explain to you what profit sharing is and how other companies are increasing bonuses and raises because the company is doing well, but then you would find another shadow to chase.

That name calling is unnecessary

A staff member who knows the salary they will make next week and still shows up has agreed to the pay. There is no claim to an extra percentage of profit unless negotiated prior.

 

[deleted480308]

Which side are you on? You are really reaching to making a very silly point. Is the pharmacy not part of the company?

Do you actually not understand that a complicated retail company has different divisions that are accounted for separately in terms of their contribution to profit? Separately, do you understand supply and demand?

 

[BC_89]

Your targeted audience is not in this forum. Moving to pharmacy

 

[BidingMyTime]

2. Contact your legislators and congress. Very recently, Texas abolished the plumbers board. They got together, they spoke up, they got on the news and within weeks, it was restored. Let us directly complain to and force our state boards or whoever to re-instate the pharmacist : Pharmact tech ratio. It was 1:3, but they changed it to 1 Pharmacist to unlimited amount of techs. Ordinarily you would expect something like this if there was a shortage of pharmacist. But in this case, there is an excess of pharmacist. So there was absolutely no sensible explanation besides corruption or bribery by big chains. Let us bombard our state board with calls.

Government answers to corporations, they don't care what individual voters think.

5. Get together and sue your stateboard. They no longer represent us.

State boards were set up to represent the public, not pharmacists. (Although at least in some states, a case could be made that they aren't representing the public either.)

6. Do not renew your Apha membership. Boycott the mid year conference. We need these organizations to feel our pain. They need to earn the money we pay. They haven’t delivered so far. Apha keeps making trainings and videos that they use to train techs to replace. Apha need to make it clear that their trainings cannot he used for anybody that isn’t a pharmacist.

Most pharmacists are not members of APHA. APHA makes their money from corporate donations, they don't care if all pharmacists quit, they would still do just fine.

They will manipulate the numbers. "99% of students surveyed got jobs!". Well guess what, only 50 students out of 150 responded to the survey. Those who are unemployed are too embarrassed to admit it. 15 of them got a residency which doesn't count as a job. Another 20 are part time or per diem. Less than 5 got full time, 80 hours and didn't have to move to BFE. The rest resorted to non-pharmacist jobs such as servers, Uber, Starbucks etc.
[/QUOTe}

This. Or they will start doing what law schools do (who do have to report the percentage of students hired after graduation), they will just hire their own students a minimum wage for a 6 month - 1 year temp job....and students will take it, if they don't get any better job offers.

lol, just let one of those big youtube channels that does documentaries cover this story. Call it a scandal or something and they will bite

Forward the thread to any of the bloggers you know.

Nobody (except for pharmacists) cares that pharmacists are unemployed or that the field is oversaturated. The same can be said about a lot of different fields. Does anybody care about the lawyer situation of high college debt and massive unemployment, and honestly which is at present quite worse that pharmacists situation. Do you care about the lawyer situation? Lets be honest, unless you are a lawyer or married to one, there is no reason why you should care about lawyers unemployment....likewise, nobody else cares about pharmacists employment, except pharmacists and their spouses.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

In the past 1 year, Walmar’s Stock has almost doubled. They beat earnings easily in the last quarter and our president has given them billions of tax cuts. The economy is supposedly great and Walmart is making a ton of money and is buying a bunch of companies here and there.

During this period of time, you would think that Walmart will appreciate its staff and pharmacist. But that did they do? They fired 40% of their pharmacists. People that have given their lives to this company. They are cutting hours left and right, denying raised and cutting bonuses. One could ask, if they are doing this during this economic boom, what will they do during the next recession?

Thus far, pharmacists have remained timid and indolent and flat out indifferent. We have all assumed that it will never get to us, but it looks like this last one got our attention and a lot of people are asking,” what can we do?” Well that is what I plan on answering here.

1. We need to force them to decrease class sizes. How do we achieve this? Do we need to send more money to uslesss organizations like Apha and Ashp etc? Absolutely not! We can however tear our preceptor licenses into pieces! The moment there is a scarcity of Preceptors, pharmacy schools will decrease classroom sizes immediately. You can do this right now. Go and grab it and tear it. Don’t renew it. Close up shop. You would get the attention of the greedy idiots that own these schools by so doing.

2. Contact your legislators and congress. Very recently, Texas abolished the plumbers board. They got together, they spoke up, they got on the news and within weeks, it was restored. Let us directly complain to and force our state boards or whoever to re-instate the pharmacist : Pharmact tech ratio. It was 1:3, but they changed it to 1 Pharmacist to unlimited amount of techs. Ordinarily you would expect something like this if there was a shortage of pharmacist. But in this case, there is an excess of pharmacist. So there was absolutely no sensible explanation besides corruption or bribery by big chains. Let us bombard our state board with calls.

3. We should be able to sue pharmacy schools for the deception and lies. It should be illegal to charge 100-200k for a profession where no one gets 80hrs. New grads should get deferrement till they can get 80hrs.

4. Make more videos. Speak up! Blog away! Share these threads.

5. Get together and sue your stateboard. They no longer represent us.

6. Do not renew your Apha membership. Boycott the mid year conference. We need these organizations to feel our pain. They need to earn the money we pay. They haven’t delivered so far. Apha keeps making trainings and videos that they use to train techs to replace. Apha need to make it clear that their trainings cannot he used for anybody that isn’t a pharmacist.

Please suggest more and more ideas in this thread. We need to fight back. We can build an online coalition without forming a union.

Quit your retail jobs

 

[olabrador23]

Government answers to corporations, they don't care what individual voters think.



State boards were set up to represent the public, not pharmacists. (Although at least in some states, a case could be made that they aren't representing the public either.)



Most pharmacists are not members of APHA. APHA makes their money from corporate donations, they don't care if all pharmacists quit, they would still do just fine.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

Government answers to corporations, they don't care what individual voters think.



State boards were set up to represent the public, not pharmacists. (Although at least in some states, a case could be made that they aren't representing the public either.)



Most pharmacists are not members of APHA. APHA makes their money from corporate donations, they don't care if all pharmacists quit, they would still do just fine.

I find this ironic. Always have. If you are a slave owner, wouldnt you want your slave to be happy? Or at least think that he or she is happy so that they could work harder?

This is probably the reason why they declared the emancipation. They figured it would be easier to make people voluntarily enter into work slavery than to force them. Hence, our modern form of slavery.

If all these organizations or cooperations want to make money for a long period of time, wouldnt you want your workers to keep on working for you and be happy about it? Why make them feel miserable and push them to their limits without and compensation? Apha, cvs, wag, walmart... if youre reading this, think about how much more you can make by simply having happy employees. Instead of 99% of them cursing at you and hating on you and wanting to quit on daily basis.

 

[8turkeys]

We need this to get national attention. Contact news agencies and urge them to cover this story like they did the law school bubble.

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help.foxnews.com

 

[right500]

Let us directly complain to and force our state boards or whoever to re-instate the pharmacist : Pharmact tech ratio. It was 1:3, but they changed it to 1 Pharmacist to unlimited amount of techs. Ordinarily you would expect something like this if there was a shortage of pharmacist. But in this case, there is an excess of pharmacist. So there was absolutely no sensible explanation besides corruption or bribery by big chains. Let us bombard our state board with calls.

Which state is this? Unlimited could be abused to a ludicrous degree! Run an entire hospital or mail order pharmacy with just one pharmacist. Then they will push for tech-check-tech. There was a health system pharmacy director at the Capitol pushing for tech-check-tech with no routine pharmacist verification or oversight and I was flabbergasted that a pharmacist would sell their fellows down the river that far (and told them that to their face!)

 

[lord999]

Amazon product ASIN B01B2CJEUG
This story about labor displacement is as old as shepherding. The farmers of the Enlightenment, the weavers of the Industrial Revolution, the factory workers of the Postwar, and the knowledge workers of today. It's happening everywhere, even in the uniformed and civil services (which used to use being underpaid as a shield from other labor indignities).

The only defense you have is to whom you sell your labor. Can't find a good price for what you're offering, you're going to have to retrain or accept lower wages or worse conditions. It's not pretty, but it's there. I was just fortunate to be born into this line of work, so I already knew the ups and downs, as well as being classmates with people destroyed with the first tech bust.

At this rate, none of us who have more than 15 years to go have any real certainty on whether we can make it to the end just being a pharmacist. Anyone who has a closer end-date needs to mind their situation too, but it is not as severe. Live frugally, make an unemployment war chest, and keep running the rat race. This challenge is the same one as what our parents had, and the only difference in our case is that it looks like instead of starting low and ending high, we're starting high and ending up low.

History is a cycle, endlessly repeating when it comes to labor dynamics. Once you figure out that career instability has always been the norm, that security is something of an illusion, then you understand why lifelong learning or being beautiful is so necessary.

 

[DrVader]

In the past 1 year, Walmar’s Stock has almost doubled. They beat earnings easily in the last quarter and our president has given them billions of tax cuts. The economy is supposedly great and Walmart is making a ton of money and is buying a bunch of companies here and there.

During this period of time, you would think that Walmart will appreciate its staff and pharmacist. But that did they do? They fired 40% of their pharmacists. People that have given their lives to this company. They are cutting hours left and right, denying raised and cutting bonuses. One could ask, if they are doing this during this economic boom, what will they do during the next recession?

Thus far, pharmacists have remained timid and indolent and flat out indifferent. We have all assumed that it will never get to us, but it looks like this last one got our attention and a lot of people are asking,” what can we do?” Well that is what I plan on answering here.

1. We need to force them to decrease class sizes. How do we achieve this? Do we need to send more money to uslesss organizations like Apha and Ashp etc? Absolutely not! We can however tear our preceptor licenses into pieces! The moment there is a scarcity of Preceptors, pharmacy schools will decrease classroom sizes immediately. You can do this right now. Go and grab it and tear it. Don’t renew it. Close up shop. You would get the attention of the greedy idiots that own these schools by so doing.

2. Contact your legislators and congress. Very recently, Texas abolished the plumbers board. They got together, they spoke up, they got on the news and within weeks, it was restored. Let us directly complain to and force our state boards or whoever to re-instate the pharmacist : Pharmact tech ratio. It was 1:3, but they changed it to 1 Pharmacist to unlimited amount of techs. Ordinarily you would expect something like this if there was a shortage of pharmacist. But in this case, there is an excess of pharmacist. So there was absolutely no sensible explanation besides corruption or bribery by big chains. Let us bombard our state board with calls.

3. We should be able to sue pharmacy schools for the deception and lies. It should be illegal to charge 100-200k for a profession where no one gets 80hrs. New grads should get deferrement till they can get 80hrs.

4. Make more videos. Speak up! Blog away! Share these threads.

5. Get together and sue your stateboard. They no longer represent us.

6. Do not renew your Apha membership. Boycott the mid year conference. We need these organizations to feel our pain. They need to earn the money we pay. They haven’t delivered so far. Apha keeps making trainings and videos that they use to train techs to replace. Apha need to make it clear that their trainings cannot he used for anybody that isn’t a pharmacist.

Please suggest more and more ideas in this thread. We need to fight back. We can build an online coalition without forming a union.

In the defense of walmart. Pharmacy isn't very profitable, so they aren't making big bucks off of it. They are also probably decreasing their footprint because they think that we will have universal healthcare soon and their won't be any money. Finally, we are in a saturated field. It doesn't matter that the economy is doing good. Pharmacist are a dime a dozen. It is harder to try and find a tech than a pharmacist. Ultimately the blame is with the schools.

 

[Chrish]

They haven’t fired 40% of rphs. They have fired 3% of health and wellness and from them 40% are senior staff, 40% new hires etc so that no one can accuse them of discrimination

 

[steveysmith54]

We tried with the petition to ACPE to stop the pharmacy school expansion and we got shut down.

Can’t fault Walmart for making a smart business decision. Target sold their pharmacies, I staterbrothers closed theirs down, if I am not mistaken sears and Kmart closed majority of them too. I know my friends who own independents are getting sick of dealing with constant audits and making pennies from dispensing life saving drugs. At some point you got to look at opportunity costs.

The solution is to attack and smear the so called “pharmacy leaders” who keep getting involved in opening new schools. Oh wait we honor and praise them, never mind

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

We tried with the petition to ACPE to stop the pharmacy school expansion and we got shut down.

Can’t fault Walmart for making a smart business decision. Target sold their pharmacies, I staterbrothers closed theirs down, if I am not mistaken sears and Kmart closed majority of them too. I know my friends who own independents are getting sick of dealing with constant audits and making pennies from dispensing life saving drugs. At some point you got to look at opportunity costs.

The solution is to attack and smear the so called “pharmacy leaders” who keep getting involved in opening new schools. Oh wait we honor and praise them, never mind

I remember the petition. What happened to it? How did it get shut down?

 

[tylenolnumber3]

I remember the petition. What happened to it? How did it get shut down?

You know. You should quit your job and gather all the people who always say “why don’t we form a union”. Call yourselves the Westboro pharmacy union and go picket at every pharmacy and spread social awareness. It doesn’t help at all when yall “we should quit pro union” people can’t even do what yall preach. Don’t rip your preceptor license rip your actual license.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

You know. You should quit your job and gather all the people who always say “why don’t we form a union”. Call yourselves the Westboro pharmacy union and go picket at every pharmacy and spread social awareness. It doesn’t help at all when yall “we should quit pro union” people can’t even do what yall preach. Don’t rip your preceptor license rip your actual license.

What are you talking about?

 

[steveysmith54]

I remember the petition. What happened to it? How did it get shut down?

There are some threads on it. In short, ACPE said that denying schools accreditation based on pharmacy saturation is a breach of federal laws. If you want specifics, search for the specific thread.

 

[ranger99rx]

They haven’t fired 40% of rphs. They have fired 3% of health and wellness and from them 40% are senior staff, 40% new hires etc so that no one can accuse them of discrimination

The 3 pharmacists that were lay off in my market had performance issues.

In the defense of walmart. Pharmacy isn't very profitable, so they aren't making big bucks off of it. They are also probably decreasing their footprint because they think that we will have universal healthcare soon and their won't be any money. Finally, we are in a saturated field. It doesn't matter that the economy is doing good. Pharmacist are a dime a dozen. It is harder to try and find a tech than a pharmacist. Ultimately the blame is with the schools.

It’s true that pharmacy doesn’t make money, only 2 pharmacies in my market made money last year.

 

[Chrish]

Imagine if you have your own independent pharmacy that employs other pharmacists. What incentive would you have to pay your pharmacists $60 if everyone else is paying them $50? From a business perspective it would make no sense for you to maintain “loyalty”.

I don’t blame chains for reducing the salary. They are just taking advantage of the situation like any other businessman would. The situation is ****ed up because of oversupply of the pharmacists. That’s where it all comes down to.

 

[olabrador23]

Amazon product ASIN B01B2CJEUG
This story about labor displacement is as old as shepherding. The farmers of the Enlightenment, the weavers of the Industrial Revolution, the factory workers of the Postwar, and the knowledge workers of today. It's happening everywhere, even in the uniformed and civil services (which used to use being underpaid as a shield from other labor indignities).

The only defense you have is to whom you sell your labor. Can't find a good price for what you're offering, you're going to have to retrain or accept lower wages or worse conditions. It's not pretty, but it's there. I was just fortunate to be born into this line of work, so I already knew the ups and downs, as well as being classmates with people destroyed with the first tech bust.

At this rate, none of us who have more than 15 years to go have any real certainty on whether we can make it to the end just being a pharmacist. Anyone who has a closer end-date needs to mind their situation too, but it is not as severe. Live frugally, make an unemployment war chest, and keep running the rat race. This challenge is the same one as what our parents had, and the only difference in our case is that it looks like instead of starting low and ending high, we're starting high and ending up low.

History is a cycle, endlessly repeating when it comes to labor dynamics. Once you figure out that career instability has always been the norm, that security is something of an illusion, then you understand why lifelong learning or being beautiful is so necessary.

this is the take it and suck it approach!

it could work....

All joking asides, this is what I see. Pharmacists mostly are taking it in, whatever get thrown at them. They just do not want to fight for themselves. I guess pre-pharms must have wondered why and thought that everything was still fine, pharmacists just wanted all for themselves, so they got in pharm schools and the cycle continued...

But when you want to fight, remember there's a will, there's a way.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

Imagine if you have your own independent pharmacy that employs other pharmacists. What incentive would you have to pay your pharmacists $60 if everyone else is paying them $50? From a business perspective it would make no sense for you to maintain “loyalty”.

I don’t blame chains for reducing the salary. They are just taking advantage of the situation like any other businessman would. The situation is ****ed up because of oversupply of the pharmacists. That’s where it all comes down to.

Well that depends. I would still pay my pharmacists more than average market value just to keep the quality of pharmacy high.

 

[lord999]

You know. You should quit your job and gather all the people who always say “why don’t we form a union”. Call yourselves the Westboro pharmacy union and go picket at every pharmacy and spread social awareness. It doesn’t help at all when yall “we should quit pro union” people can’t even do what yall preach. Don’t rip your preceptor license rip your actual license.

That's what happened in Chicago to start the first pharmacists' union. It's sad, our generation screwed it up at the last strike by not preparing well enough. It's not necessarily the way it has to work, but there's not enough people in any market to force that action. How do you think the shortage came to be in the first place? It was not just from growth.

 

[steveysmith54]

Well that depends. I would still pay my pharmacists more than average market value just to keep the quality of pharmacy high.

You can find younger, faster, more motivated, hungrier pharmacist and train him or her in couple of months. Pay less money. Very very few Rph can differentiate themselves. There isn’t too many Tom Brady or Michael Jordan talent level Rph out there. It’s more like servicible or not

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

You can find younger, faster, more motivated, hungrier pharmacist and train him or her in couple of months. Pay less money. Very very few Rph can differentiate themselves. There isn’t too many Tom Brady or Michael Jordan talent level Rph out there. It’s more like servicible or not

I disagree. Yes, if all you need a pharmacist to do is just check the prescription to be correct and dispense the right drugs accordingly, any yahoo off of the street can do that. But as a pic at an independent pharmacy that has rich and long history and most patients having been here that long as well, you dont want just some random pharmacist thats has a body temperature above 98. Just bc youre younger, doesnt mean youre more motivated or hungrier. You may actually be motivated for the wrong reason such as money. Im not gonna hire someone like that. I need to make sure he or she cares about the patient and the pharmacy as well as the technicians. I want a pharmacist thats constantly educating himself through various means and be active in local and pharmacy community since that is how i am. If youre willing to be a good, genuinely caring for patients type of pharmacist, i am willing to pay you more. We've already hired another tech on top of 4 that we already have along with 3 clerks.

This is why i cant understand what cvs and other chains are doing. Im sure they profit way more than we do.

 

[steveysmith54]

I disagree. Yes, if all you need a pharmacist to do is just check the prescription to be correct and dispense the right drugs accordingly, any yahoo off of the street can do that. But as a pic at an independent pharmacy that has rich and long history and most patients having been here that long as well, you dont want just some random pharmacist thats has a body temperature above 98. Just bc youre younger, doesnt mean youre more motivated or hungrier. You may actually be motivated for the wrong reason such as money. Im not gonna hire someone like that. I need to make sure he or she cares about the patient and the pharmacy as well as the technicians. I want a pharmacist thats constantly educating himself through various means and be active in local and pharmacy community since that is how i am. If youre willing to be a good, genuinely caring for patients type of pharmacist, i am willing to pay you more. We've already hired another tech on top of 4 that we already have along with 3 clerks.

This is why i cant understand what cvs and other chains are doing. Im sure they profit way more than we do.

Lol

 

[BidingMyTime]

I find this ironic. Always have. If you are a slave owner, wouldnt you want your slave to be happy? Or at least think that he or she is happy so that they could work harder?
This is probably the reason why they declared the emancipation. They figured it would be easier to make people voluntarily enter into work slavery than to force them. Hence, our modern form of slavery.
If all these organizations or cooperations want to make money for a long period of time, wouldnt you want your workers to keep on working for you and be happy about it? Why make them feel miserable and push them to their limits without and compensation? Apha, cvs, wag, walmart... if youre reading this, think about how much more you can make by simply having happy employees. Instead of 99% of them cursing at you and hating on you and wanting to quit on daily basis.

This all sounds good in theory, but in reality, this isn't how people at the top work. Google "narcissist CEO" and see how many articles pop up about how narcissists are more likely to be CEO's than non-narcissists. Narcissists don't care about the long term, and they certainly don't care about other people, they care only about their immediate gratification. That is why you see so many CEO's getting a CEO job, completely run the business in the ground by massive lay-offs and selling assets--stuff that on paper makes it look like the business is better off--then the board rewards them with big bonuses and salaries raises, and then when the chickens are coming home to roost, so to speak, the CEO leaves for another job, and lets the business go bankrupt or get bought out by another corporation.

 

[TerryTerry]

I disagree. Yes, if all you need a pharmacist to do is just check the prescription to be correct and dispense the right drugs accordingly, any yahoo off of the street can do that. But as a pic at an independent pharmacy that has rich and long history and most patients having been here that long as well, you dont want just some random pharmacist thats has a body temperature above 98. Just bc youre younger, doesnt mean youre more motivated or hungrier. You may actually be motivated for the wrong reason such as money. Im not gonna hire someone like that. I need to make sure he or she cares about the patient and the pharmacy as well as the technicians. I want a pharmacist thats constantly educating himself through various means and be active in local and pharmacy community since that is how i am. If youre willing to be a good, genuinely caring for patients type of pharmacist, i am willing to pay you more. We've already hired another tech on top of 4 that we already have along with 3 clerks.

This is why i cant understand what cvs and other chains are doing. Im sure they profit way more than we do.

You are noble.
Unlike you most other people only care about money, money and money.

 

[steveysmith54]

You are noble.
Unlike you most other people only care about money, money and money.

I am seeing CVS that does well over 2000 rx a week operate 10-4pm on Sundays, I am seeing new pharmacists almost everyday float there. part of CVS philosophy is if you don’t meet metrics, we will find someone better and faster than you, there is no shortage of candidates. They don’t care about the pharmacist, especially their “happiness” or the pt, revenue comes first. This isn’t the 1990’s or early 2000’s. The average joe will never stop coming to CVS

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

I am seeing CVS that does well over 2000 rx a week operate 10-4pm on Sundays, I am seeing new pharmacists almost everyday float there. part of CVS philosophy is if you don’t meet metrics, we will find someone better and faster than you, there is no shortage of candidates. They don’t care about the pharmacist, especially their “happiness” or the pt, revenue comes first. This isn’t the 1990’s or early 2000’s. The average joe will never stop coming to CVS

Well its human psychology 101 right? They know that you HAVE to work. They know that the market is saturated since they probably funded the saturation. I know this for a fact since walgreen had a huge presence at my school. They also know that nothing bad has happened yet in the way theyve done things so they know that they can keep on pushing and test the limits. At some point, the system will break. If this continues, soon enough people will realize there is no future in pharmacy. Yes, i know its already happening but only those who are inside know whats really going on. Its going take some time before it hits the public. Hard. Which goes back to my point. How do cvs, wag, walmart not see this? Its like the flight attendants. It used to be such a great job back in the 70s and 80s. Now US flight attendants are glorified janitors compared to places like Korea or Japan. US pharmacists are on the brink of self-elimination.

 

[steveysmith54]

Well its human psychology 101 right? They know that you HAVE to work. They know that the market is saturated since they probably funded the saturation. I know this for a fact since walgreen had a huge presence at my school. They also know that nothing bad has happened yet in the way theyve done things so they know that they can keep on pushing and test the limits. At some point, the system will break. If this continues, soon enough people will realize there is no future in pharmacy. Yes, i know its already happening but only those who are inside know whats really going on. Its going take some time before it hits the public. Hard. Which goes back to my point. How do cvs, wag, walmart not see this? Its like the flight attendants. It used to be such a great job back in the 70s and 80s. Now US flight attendants are glorified janitors compared to places like Korea or Japan. US pharmacists are on the brink of self-elimination.

Yes and no. see example of law schools. Pharmacy schools are still filling seats, hell At least two more schools that I know of want to open in the Orange County/LA areas. The difference is the best and brightest aren’t going into pharmacy, but the applicant from community college who took only the prerequisites will take a swing at this doctorate degree, it’s very attainable compared to US MD/DO/DDS route

 

[AlwaysContrary]

It’s true that pharmacy doesn’t make money, only 2 pharmacies in my market made money last year.

Pharmacies can very much so make money. They just have to be ran well. Chain pharmacies are not ran well.

 

[AM77]

The best thing to do is to contact your local newspaper and local news channel. The media is a very powerful tool and probably the best way to get the word out there. It is our responsibility to inform as many people as possible about our situation.

 

[Lubeckd]

Amazon product ASIN B01B2CJEUG
This story about labor displacement is as old as shepherding. The farmers of the Enlightenment, the weavers of the Industrial Revolution, the factory workers of the Postwar, and the knowledge workers of today. It's happening everywhere, even in the uniformed and civil services (which used to use being underpaid as a shield from other labor indignities).

The only defense you have is to whom you sell your labor. Can't find a good price for what you're offering, you're going to have to retrain or accept lower wages or worse conditions. It's not pretty, but it's there. I was just fortunate to be born into this line of work, so I already knew the ups and downs, as well as being classmates with people destroyed with the first tech bust.

At this rate, none of us who have more than 15 years to go have any real certainty on whether we can make it to the end just being a pharmacist. Anyone who has a closer end-date needs to mind their situation too, but it is not as severe. Live frugally, make an unemployment war chest, and keep running the rat race. This challenge is the same one as what our parents had, and the only difference in our case is that it looks like instead of starting low and ending high, we're starting high and ending up low.

History is a cycle, endlessly repeating when it comes to labor dynamics. Once you figure out that career instability has always been the norm, that security is something of an illusion, then you understand why lifelong learning or being beautiful is so necessary.

The hunters, then farmers, then industrial revolution, then globalization and now AI. Overnight a lot of traditional jobs disappear. Ironsmith .etc. A lot of in danger of disappearing.

 

[VA77]

Really hard to be profitable when your selling Rxs for $4.

 

[VictorOfHungerGames]

Really hard to be profitable when your selling Rxs for $4.

Are you talking about independents? Typically reimbursements are more than that per script. Plus cash patients, otc products, compounding and now cdb rolling in you could be banking owning 3-4 indies that do about 8-900 a week. Thats if you know how to manage pharmacies.

Indies in heat zones are struggling but ones outside are going strong. Obviously, it could be better lol

 

[Splenda88]

John Acevedo, PharmD PGY2...

I saw that yesterday where I am doing residency and I laughed... Why would someone go to pharmacy school and have to do 2-year post-grad training? Do some people know you only need a 3-year to be a full-fledged physician in the US and make bank (in the case of EM doc -- 350k+yr working 30-32 hrs/yr)...

You only need 2-yr PGY to become a FM doc in some provinces in Canada.