CVS & Walgreens Strikes

[Alpha8472]

Pharmacy employees go on strike.

https://drugstorenews.com/pharmacists-c ... d-walkouts

[ClownLoach]

Walgreens has announced they're slashing all bonuses at their VillageMD clinics and reducing retirement benefits. Apparently the billion dollar cost reduction plan is part of a new initiative to become one of the worst places to work in America (if they weren't already there yet).

[storewanderer]

The ship has sailed. With Rite Aid on the ropes, Target/various grocers sold pharmacies to Walgreens/CVS, chains like Kmart or Freds who closed hundreds of pharmacies as they went out of business, this is the future of pharmacy: Walgreens and CVS (and mail order). These folks complaining about poor working conditions have very legitimate, valid complaints, but have few options. Customers are also highly dissatisfied with these chains CVS/Walgreens. The lucky pharmacy employees are trying to land a hospital/clinic/Wal Mart/quiet grocery store/independent pharmacy job and getting as far away from CVS/Walgreens as possible (until it buys the pharmacy wherever they work).

Maybe that FTC should have been a little more active as the small regional drugstore chains were being bought out by CVS and Rite Aid over the years, but these chains often did purchases in new territories but managed to sort of indirectly work together to buy everything. CVS never should have been allowed to buy Longs in CA after buying Sav-On and Walgreens should never have been allowed to buy half of Rite Aid. Also Rite Aid never should have been allowed to buy Bartell.

[ClownLoach]

The ship has sailed. With Rite Aid on the ropes, Target/various grocers sold pharmacies to Walgreens/CVS, chains like Kmart or Freds who closed hundreds of pharmacies as they went out of business, this is the future of pharmacy: Walgreens and CVS (and mail order). These folks complaining about poor working conditions have very legitimate, valid complaints, but have few options. Customers are also highly dissatisfied with these chains CVS/Walgreens. The lucky pharmacy employees are trying to land a hospital/clinic/Wal Mart/quiet grocery store/independent pharmacy job and getting as far away from CVS/Walgreens as possible (until it buys the pharmacy wherever they work).

Maybe that FTC should have been a little more active as the small regional drugstore chains were being bought out by CVS and Rite Aid over the years, but these chains often did purchases in new territories but managed to sort of indirectly work together to buy everything. CVS never should have been allowed to buy Longs in CA after buying Sav-On and Walgreens should never have been allowed to buy half of Rite Aid. Also Rite Aid never should have been allowed to buy Bartell.

The real issue is that they're going to destroy their own futures with this crap. You have to go through a lot of expensive schooling to become a pharmacist, and if your only option will be to work for a slave driver like CVS or Walgreens then you're going to take different classes and get into a different career. People are not going to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to go to college to work for CVS, they will stop studying Pharmacy and pick something else. And if CVS and Walgreens become the de facto American pharmacy then I think it could be argued that now it's their job training they should be paying for and thereby once hired they should be paying off your student loan debt. The government is going to have to break up the CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains. They're already worming their way into hospitals, nursing homes, and other alternatives as well in an effort to suffocate all other forms of competition. We've already seen tests where they were working with Kroger (Walgreens) so I imagine it's only a matter of time before they sell all their pharmacies to Walgreens especially since they don't seem to be interested in the retail side of the business anyway based on the state of their sad, empty stores with shelves blocked with empty boxes. Then what? CVS starts taking out other grocery store pharmacies. Eventually there won't be any other options at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if other options still exist by 2030 aside from (maybe) Costco. They are anticompetitive, and I almost think that the opioid lawsuits are being driven by them to wipe out the rest of the industry.

[storewanderer]

The real issue is that they're going to destroy their own futures with this crap. You have to go through a lot of expensive schooling to become a pharmacist, and if your only option will be to work for a slave driver like CVS or Walgreens then you're going to take different classes and get into a different career. People are not going to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to go to college to work for CVS, they will stop studying Pharmacy and pick something else. And if CVS and Walgreens become the de facto American pharmacy then I think it could be argued that now it's their job training they should be paying for and thereby once hired they should be paying off your student loan debt. The government is going to have to break up the CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains. They're already worming their way into hospitals, nursing homes, and other alternatives as well in an effort to suffocate all other forms of competition. We've already seen tests where they were working with Kroger (Walgreens) so I imagine it's only a matter of time before they sell all their pharmacies to Walgreens especially since they don't seem to be interested in the retail side of the business anyway based on the state of their sad, empty stores with shelves blocked with empty boxes. Then what? CVS starts taking out other grocery store pharmacies. Eventually there won't be any other options at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if other options still exist by 2030 aside from (maybe) Costco. They are anticompetitive, and I almost think that the opioid lawsuits are being driven by them to wipe out the rest of the industry.

Luckily the arrangement where Walgreens ran the drug department OTC shelves (not pharmacy) in some Kroger Stores in TN or KY or something ended and Kroger took back control of those departments.

I was also happy in Reno that a local hospital (Renown Regional Medical Center) who had a CVS (former Longs) inside the hospital took back over that space and is running the pharmacy again.

I don't expect the government to break these chains up. If anything the government loves having these two giant chains.

[buckguy]

The ship has sailed. With Rite Aid on the ropes, Target/various grocers sold pharmacies to Walgreens/CVS, chains like Kmart or Freds who closed hundreds of pharmacies as they went out of business, this is the future of pharmacy: Walgreens and CVS (and mail order). These folks complaining about poor working conditions have very legitimate, valid complaints, but have few options. Customers are also highly dissatisfied with these chains CVS/Walgreens. The lucky pharmacy employees are trying to land a hospital/clinic/Wal Mart/quiet grocery store/independent pharmacy job and getting as far away from CVS/Walgreens as possible (until it buys the pharmacy wherever they work).

Maybe that FTC should have been a little more active as the small regional drugstore chains were being bought out by CVS and Rite Aid over the years, but these chains often did purchases in new territories but managed to sort of indirectly work together to buy everything. CVS never should have been allowed to buy Longs in CA after buying Sav-On and Walgreens should never have been allowed to buy half of Rite Aid. Also Rite Aid never should have been allowed to buy Bartell.

The real issue is that they're going to destroy their own futures with this crap. You have to go through a lot of expensive schooling to become a pharmacist, and if your only option will be to work for a slave driver like CVS or Walgreens then you're going to take different classes and get into a different career. People are not going to run up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to go to college to work for CVS, they will stop studying Pharmacy and pick something else. And if CVS and Walgreens become the de facto American pharmacy then I think it could be argued that now it's their job training they should be paying for and thereby once hired they should be paying off your student loan debt. The government is going to have to break up the CVS and Walgreens pharmacy chains. They're already worming their way into hospitals, nursing homes, and other alternatives as well in an effort to suffocate all other forms of competition. We've already seen tests where they were working with Kroger (Walgreens) so I imagine it's only a matter of time before they sell all their pharmacies to Walgreens especially since they don't seem to be interested in the retail side of the business anyway based on the state of their sad, empty stores with shelves blocked with empty boxes. Then what? CVS starts taking out other grocery store pharmacies. Eventually there won't be any other options at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if other options still exist by 2030 aside from (maybe) Costco. They are anticompetitive, and I almost think that the opioid lawsuits are being driven by them to wipe out the rest of the industry.

There are regional shortages of pharmacists. There are other career paths for them and other ways to use their academic training.

[mjhale]

It doesn't help that CVS and Walgreens are also Pharmacy Benefits Managers. Their PBM plans are written to give you the best prices on maintenance meds by either going mail order or their own retail pharmacies. If you go to an independent or grocery store pharmacy you can still get maintenance meds but the co-pay is higher. My employer uses CVS/Caremark as our PBM. 90 day meds are $14 co-pay through either mail order or a CVS retail pharmacy. If I go to a independent or grocery pharmacy, my co-pay for 90 day meds is $21-$27 for the most common meds and a percentage of retail for less common drugs. Thankfully the maintenance meds I take are common ones. If I ever had to take something less common or more expensive, I think I might look into Costco to see if their retail prices are better than using my insurance. As storewanderer wrote, we may not have any other choice in the future.