Why pharmacy workers are going on strike amid widespread store closures

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• John Yang:

  Finding a neighborhood pharmacist is becoming increasingly challenging. Over the past two years, the nation's three biggest pharmacy chains with brick and mortar stores, CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, which is filed for bankruptcy have either closed or announced plans to close hundreds of stores.

  And many of the remaining locations pharmacy workers say working conditions have gotten worse. That's led to unannounced walkouts. And this coming week, a planned walk out at Walgreens nationwide. Tom Murphy is the Associated Press national health writer.

  Tom, I know you've been talking to pharmacist at Walgreens and elsewhere. What are they telling you about why they're taking these job actions?

• Tom Murphy, National Health Writer, Associated Press:

  Well, the biggest thing they're stressing is this isn't about money, they're not seeking more pay, they just need more help behind the counter. That's what they tell me. They've been stressed especially by all the vaccines they have to give now, especially in the fall, when you have COVID shots and flu shots and pneumonia vaccines coming into your store every day.

  They want more help behind the counter because they said their main job is obviously filling and checking prescriptions. And every time you have to break away from that to do a vaccine that's putting more stress on your main job.

  A lot of times, there's only one pharmacist behind the counter, and they can't break away for a bathroom break or the pharmacy has to close. They're also being asked to do a lot more with health care. A lot of them help people quit smoking or monitor their blood sugar. So they need help with these tasks in order to do the main job, which is filling prescriptions and checking them for accuracy.

  Chain stores tend to operate with one pharmacist on duty, instead of having overlapping shifts or multiple pharmacists on duty. And that means the pharmacist can't leave the counter because you can't operate a pharmacy without a pharmacist on duty.

• John Yang:

  And what are the chain stores say in response to this?

• Tom Murphy:

  They say they are listening to their concerns. Walgreens, for instance, has opened a bunch of processing centers around the country to process a lot of the chronic prescriptions that patients get regularly which will take workload off the store pharmacists. CVS is doing some things too. But so far the pharmacists haven't seen enough to alleviate their concerns.

• John Yang:

  How much is the changing economics of the pharmacy industry, I mean, we've seen sort of great expansion now retraction, the rise of pharmacy by mail, how much of that has led to these problems.

• Tom Murphy:

  All those factors have definitely contributed to the problem is the biggest one is pharmacies just don't get a lot of money for the prescriptions they feel. So they're left with what's called a thin margin. So they have to make money elsewhere. And vaccines can be a little bit lucrative for them.

  The other problem is they added a lot of stores 15, 20 years ago to get closer to the consumer. And then Amazon got much closer to the consumer and is taking business away from what's called the front of their stores, which is the area outside the pharmacy where a lot of their consumer goods are sold.

• John Yang:

  And what's the effect on the consumer of all of this?

• Tom Murphy:

  Well, with the consumer. There can be really long waits for prescriptions, you could come into the drugstore and find that the drugstore is temporarily closed because there isn't a pharmacist on duty. It also exacerbates problems with drug shortages.

  I had a pharmacist tell me that one day last fall, he took 100 phone calls during the day just for shortages of amoxicillin and Adderall.

• John Yang:

  With so many physical stores closing, are we in danger of having regions or neighborhoods where there's just no nearby pharmacy?

• Tom Murphy:

  That's always a risk, especially in poor neighborhoods that have a lot of Medicaid patients because they just don't make a lot of money for the drugstore. So financially, it might not make much sense for the drugstores to stay open in some of those neighborhoods.

• John Yang:

  And what about rural areas? Are there concerns about pharmacies disappearing in rural areas?

• Tom Murphy:

  Yeah, it's a different dynamic. Instead of drugstore being a few blocks away, a pharmacy desert in rural areas is considered a drugstore that's maybe five miles away. But that is a problem and Rite Aid was actually trying to address it earlier this year with a really small program where they opened many stores in SoCal Pharmacy deserts areas where there aren't a lot of pharmacies.

• John Yang:

  You mentioned Walgreens setting up these distribution centers to handle a lot of the prescriptions. Is it getting to the point where we really don't need a brick and mortar pharmacy?

• Tom Murphy:

  Not quite because pharmacists play a really valuable role in talking to people about their medicines and making sure that they have the right dose or talking to them about side effects and how to manage those, and just seeing how they're feeling.

  And if you're at a processing center, filling a prescription and not talking to the customer, you lose that. So, there's still a lot of value for those brick and mortar stores.

• John Yang:

  Tom Murphy of the Associated Press, thank you very much.

• Tom Murphy:

  Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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