Charissa Junker, a Walgreens pharmacy technician in Vancouver, Washington, said she voted to join a union because “there needs to be somebody to look out for the little guy.”
Junker’s workplace became the first in the Pacific Northwest to successfully join a new national organizing effort targeting pharmacy workers. The Pharmacy Guild wants to organize pharmacists and pharmacy technicians at national chain stores over what the union characterizes as poor working conditions that hurt patient care.
Amid increasing concerns over pharmacy working conditions, some employees in greater Portland were among those that engaged in walkouts last October. While there are other unions that represent pharmacy professionals including pharmacists, organizers of the new union say it grew out of those retail store walkouts and was specifically formed to represent these workers.
Junker, 42, always felt like “a small fish in a big pond” while working in health care, she told The Lund Report.
“I have worked for a lot of different companies, big companies, and always felt like there was always the bottom line,” she said.
The election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board applied to 11 workers at the store, which is located on NE 139th St. Of those eligible to vote, ten did — all in favor, according to the vote tallied a week ago. The union will represent “All full-time and regular part-time Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians, Certified Pharmacy Technicians and Senior Certified Pharmacy Technicians” at the store, according to the filing.
Junker became a pharmacy technician about 10 months ago because she enjoys working with people, she added. She spends her work days billing insurance, discussing medications with customers and helping solve issues to get prescriptions filled.
Junker said she has good relationships with her managers, but there are still changes she would like to see at her workplace, including less of a wait period for new workers seeking health insurance, better pay and staffing.
Concerns cited by the Walgreens workers included “excessive workloads, chronic short staffing” and high prescription volumes, according to a press release.
Asked about the vote, Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman told The Lund Report in an email that the company has worked “with team members represented by various unions across the country, and we will continue to do so in this store.”
He said the company has taken steps over the last two years to improve working conditions, including pay and benefits.
“While we respect the choice of our team members to be represented by a union, we believe the best way to accomplish results is through direct relationships between our team members and their managers,” he wrote.
The guild is an outgrowth of the IAM Healthcare union of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
The Vancouver Walgreens is the seventh workplace to join the guild, following CVS pharmacies in Nevada and Rhode Island. According to the union, efforts to organize other stores in Oregon and Washington are under way.
