LOS ANGELES — On Saturday, August 24, scores of CVS employees from across California, along with community supporters, banded together at a CVS pharmacy in South Los Angeles to call on CV
S to negotiate a fair contract with fair pay and benefits, safe staffing levels, affordable and comprehensive health benefits, and safer shopping experiences for customers.
Despite providing essential healthcare services for CVS, a prominent healthcare corporation that reported a staggering net operating income of $11.173 billion last year, many CVS employees continue to struggle with basic necessities like paying rent, buying food, and affording their own healthcare.
A recent survey among Local 770 members revealed that a startling 64% of respondents do not have the company’s health plan. Instead, workers rely on coverage from their spouses or parents and government-sponsored programs such as Medi-Cal. One of the main reasons cited for not having the company’s health plan is that the company’s plan is unaffordable (77 %).
CVS employees also face the detrimental impacts of short staffing, which has contributed to increased shoplifting and workplace violence, putting workers’ and customers’ safety in jeopardy and resulting in excessive burnout and mental health issues.
UFCW 770 president Kathy Finn stated that after being in negotiations with CVS representatives for several months, “where workers have told heartbreaking stories of struggling with low pay, understaffing, workplace violence, and their own inadequate healthcare while CVS has rejected all our proposals to solve these issues. CVS’ stated purpose is ‘bringing our heart to every moment of your health’ but I can’t describe them as anything other than heartless.”
“Recently my husband needed to have an operation and had to change insurance because he couldn’t pay his copays anymore,” said Gladys Gonzalez, a pharmacy technician at CVS in Anaheim and a member of UFCW Local 324. “I added him on to my plan at CVS along with my son, thinking I would be able to afford to get my husband the care he needed, but now I’m paying around $388 per paycheck – over $600 a month! We deserve to live knowing we can keep our families healthy. It’s time CVS starts acting like a healthcare company again and cares about its employees.”
“CVS says it’s a healthcare company, one with a ‘heart,’ but we don’t see them prioritizing health or heart anywhere in how CVS treats its workers, customers and patients,” said Andrea Zinder, president, UFCW Local 324. “CVS needs to realize that employees are the reason they have been able to make billions of dollars in profits. It’s time to prioritize hard workers over profits.”
The CVS contract expired on June 30 and negotiations have been held since May 23; contract talks will resume on August 27 and 28. As essential providers of healthcare services to the community, CVS employees play a critical role in filling prescriptions and promoting the health and well-being of families.
Eight UFCW Locals in California (5,135, 324, 648, 770, 1167, 1428, and 1442) make up the CVS contract, representing 7,000 UFCW members in the state. The members represented under this contract work in essential retail drug stores spanning from Northern California to the U.S.–Mexico border.
The goal of the UFCW Locals’ coordinated negotiation effort is to secure a contract that provides fair wages for essential CVS workers and improved safety and security for both workers and customers.