CVS workers strike at 7 Southern California stores for better pay and health care

  

(AP) — Workers at seven CVS pharmacies in Southern California have gone on strike for better pay and health care and to protest what they say is bad-faith contract bargaining by the company.

The walkout, which affected four stores in Los Angeles and three in Orange County, began Friday morning and continued into the weekend. On Saturday outside one of the LA stores, strikers urged customers not to cross the picket lines.

Melissa Acosta, a pharmacy technician who is on the contract bargaining committee, accused the company of “intimidating workers, observing them, getting in the way of them speaking to union representatives.”

The CVS locations affected have remained open, staffed by managers and non-union employees.

Workers planned to continue picketing until negotiations resumed Wednesday. The strike was authorized by a vote of the two local United Food and Commercial Workers unions involved on Sept. 29, with more than 90% in favor.

“We’re disappointed that our UFCW member colleagues have gone on strike at a few select locations in the Los Angeles area,” company spokesperson Amy Thibault said in a statement.

Thibault said CVS has made progress on getting to a final contract and reached “tentative agreements” to raise pay and increase the company’s health insurance contributions.

Acosta said she cannot meet the cost of the insurance CVS offers and instead is enrolled in the state-run program Covered California.

“In my nine years of working with CVS, I’ve never been able to afford their health care plan,” she said.

Major pharmacy chains across the country have been struggling with costs and online competition. CEO Karen Lynch of CVS Health, which owns the chain, recently stepped down as shares dropped 19%. CVS is nearing the end of a three-year plan to close 900 stores.

CVS pharmacy technicians, who are required to complete an extensive training program and satisfy licensing requirements, currently make $24.90 an hour after five years on the job, according to the union.

Carlos Alfaro, a technician who joined the strike, said stores are understaffed as the flu season begins.

“We have to call (patients) constantly to get flu shots, push vaccines,” Alfaro said. “This is a lot of extra work we’re expected to do, on top of filling medications at the pharmacy.”

Many stores have increasingly locked up items as an anti-shoplifting measure, forcing customers to get assistance from employees. Workers say that further exacerbates the understaffing problem.

“There are so many customers that don’t get help and have to constantly wait to get something unlocked,” said Acosta. “They think we just don’t want to help them when in reality the company doesn’t give us adequate staffing to be able to provide excellent customer service.”

Workers are also asking for better store security, among other demands.

Mail carriers reach a tentative contract with USPS that includes pay raises and air-conditioned trucks

Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks.

The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through November 2026. Letter carriers have been working without a new contract since their old one expired in May 2023. Since then they have continued working under the terms of the old contract.

Both the union and the Postal Service welcomed the agreement, which was announced Friday.

“Both sides didn’t get everything they wanted. But by bargaining in good faith, we ended with an agreement that meets our goals and rewards our members,” Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told The Associated Press. “To make that happen, the Postal Service had to recognize the contributions of members to the Postal Service and the American people.”

Among other improvements, the deal increases the top pay and reduces the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level, Renfroe said. He credited Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his deputy for bargaining in good faith throughout the arduous process.

The Postal Service said the agreement supported its 10-year “Delivering for America” mission to modernize operations and adapt to changing customer needs.

“This is a fair and responsible agreement that serves the best interest of our employees, our customers, and the future of the Postal Service,” said Doug Tulino, the deputy postmaster general and chief human resources officer.

As part of the agreement, all city carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3% each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from Nov. 2023. Workers will also receive retroactive and future cost-of-living adjustments.

There is also a commitment from the Postal Service to “make every effort” to provide mail trucks with air-conditioning.

In the summer the Postal Service began rolling out its new electric delivery vehicles, which come equipped with air-conditioning. While the trucks won’t win any beauty contests, they did get rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.

Within a few years, the new fleet will have expanded to 60,000, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.

Under the tentative contract agreement, the Postal Service must discuss with the union any plans to buy new mail trucks that don’t have air-conditioning.

This is the second contract negotiated since DeJoy was appointed in 2020. It is expected to take several weeks for union members to ratify it.

Rural mail carriers are not covered by the contract because they are represented by a different union.