Why did workers walk off the job even before the COVID-19 pandemic? A story of 21 years in Kaiser, a doctor’s advocate
The three-day strike would hit hospitals, clinics and medical offices from California and Colorado to Washington D.C. Thousands of workers, including nurses, lab technicians, Pharmacists and therapists would walk off the job.
Lucas said understaffing was a concern even before the COVID-19 pandemic. She said that Kaiser executives “kicked the can down the road” at the same time that the US was hit by a P.H. epidemic.
With better pay and work conditions, they say, more people would be incentivized to stay at Kaiser. It would attract new workers, which would alleviate the staffing shortage.
The wait time for an appointment in Pamela Reid’s department ranged from five to 10 business days before the COVID-19 PAIN. But now, patients often have to wait two months, she said.
The coalition wants a pay raise for all of its members as well as more investment in training and medical coverage for retirees.
Kaiser has offered raises ranging from 12% to 14%, according to the unions. The unions also say Kaiser has so far refused to renew subcontracting and outsourcing protections.
Lucas said that the organization doesn’t take into account the thousands of workers who are leaving. Kaiser, she added, needs to raise wages to give people a reason to stay.
“(Some Kaiser employees) work 40, 50, 60 hours a week at a job that we all know as a society that we need to have filled,” Lucas said. They cannot pay their bills at the end of the week.
In her 21 years at Kaiser, she has moved up through the ranks. The technician and outpatient pharmacist positions that El-Amin held were in the Washington D.C. area.
But she started to notice changes when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in 2020. That’s when the place where she built her career no longer seemed to have her back.
Working as an outpatient pharmacist in the early weeks of the pandemic, El-Amin said severe levels of understaffing negatively affected her mental health each day. She showed up every morning not knowing how many technicians would call out of work – and how much stress she’d be under to still meet quotas, despite having less support.
The pharmacy is among the many workers in industries who walked off the job to protest how they are treated. “The number of workers who went on strike was 50% higher last year than in 2021,” as member station KCUR reports.
The report “underscores the persistent issues of inadequate staffing, unreasonable metrics, and harassment,” the Nebraska Pharmacists Association said. Most of the harassment cases that were noted in the report identified the harasser as the managers and supervisors, not the customers.
Many of the problems mirror issues found at CVS a store in Virginia Beach, Va., in 2021. Overwork and other problems were linked to dangerous errors in dispensing drugs — and violations that resulted in a $470,000 fine. The investigation’s results were respectfully disagreeed by the company.
The problems extended far beyond one store and were warned by the pharmacy in that case.
CVS has no one but itself to blame for the problems highlighted in the past week according to the California Pharmacists Association, which says it supports the pharmacists who walked out.
In the U.S., PBMs act as a go-between for insurance providers and drug makers. PBMs “were created in the 1960s to help employers and insurers select and purchase medications for their health plans,” as NPR has reported.
The two senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday that hopes to change the way pharmacy benefit managers operate, so that prices will go down and there is more competition.
Another sponsor, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said their bill, the Modernizing and Ensuring PBM Accountability Act, would ensure that “seniors can access the pharmacy of their choice, including in rural communities.”
The CVS Employees’ Empathy: Why the CVS Store is Closer than a McDonald’s Do You Have to Work?
Protesters say that while the demand for prescription and vaccine drugs is growing, the pharmacy chain has decided to cut back on staffing. CVS announced plans at the start of this year to cut or shift hours at thousands of its pharmacies.
“It’s like running a McDonald’s with just one person,” a pharmacist told The Kansas City Star, adding that they must work alone for the vast majority of the 64 hours a week their store is open.
The new regional leader of the company has reached out and promised better conditions, including adding more paid work hours to meet demand, and decreasing vaccine use, according to a positive response posted on a pharmacy’s Facebook page.
CVS Executive Vice President Prem Shah, the company’s chief pharmacy officer, apologized to employees in an internal memo that was shared online by USA Today.