The CVS pharmacy logo is displayed on a sign above a CVS Health Corp. store in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 7, 2024. Patrick T.
Fallon | AFP | Getty Images Pharmacy staff at two CVS retail stores in Rhode Island voted to join a new national pharmacy union on Friday, signaling growing momentum in a movement to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they allege are unsafe working conditions .
Pharmacy workers at locations open 24 hours a day in Wakefield and Westerly won their union elections, making them the first stores to unionize in CVS's home state , according to a release from the union. It comes a month after a CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas — which is not customer facing — became the first location to join the union, known as The Pharmacy Guild . The labor group will represent them in negotiations with CVS.
"These are the first brick-and-mortar classic CVS model" stores to join the union, Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC. "This is really where my heart is ..
. we've all worked for Walgreens or CVS in the classic retail setting, so we all know the working conditions there." The two locations consist of nine of the company's roughly 30,000 pharmacists in the U.
S., a CVS spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. Some 700 CVS pharmacists are already unionized with other groups, they noted.
The spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so. They ad.
