CVS pharmacy workers rally in Newport Beach for higher wages, call for boycott

Michele Creager started working as a pharmacy clerk 37 years ago and used to be able to make ends meet. The 60-year-old Huntington Beach native and her co-workers at Sav-On could count on an hourly raise of $2 each year, affordable healthcare plans and paid vacation time, she said. She also recalled stores being well staffed late into the evening and generally feeling safe when working after dark.

But things changed when CVS Health took over in 2006. Her annual pay increases shrank to as little as a dime or two per hour while the cost of her health insurance plans grew. The company also cut workers’ hours, she said, leaving fewer employees to look out for the store and each other.

“There used to always be eight or 10 people scheduled at night,” said Creager, now a Costa Mesa resident. “Now it’s myself and one other person, and when that person goes to lunch I’m left alone. I’ve been kicked, punched, slapped [and] had a knife pulled on me. I don’t feel safe.”

That’s why she joined a handful of fellow workers and organizers from several Orange County CVS pharmacies to rally at the company’s Newport Beach location on Thursday. They asked shoppers to boycott the store from noon to 2 p.m., opt out of the company’s reward program or otherwise show support for the union representing them, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324, as they negotiate a new contract.

Jolene Cruz speaks with shoppers in front of CVS in Newport Beach while demonstrating for better wages and safer working conditions on Thursday.

(Eric Licas)

UFCW represents CVS workers across Southern California, including 29 at the Newport Beach location and 26 at two locations in Huntington Beach, according to UFCW spokeswoman Jenna Thompson. The company’s last agreement with the union expired on June 30.

Last week, union members at stores in Orange County, the South Bay and the Long Beach area voted on whether or not they might go on strike. In a statement released Friday, the union announced its members had voted in favor of doing so, if necessary. Both sides are scheduled to resume bargaining on Oct. 16.

The union’s bargaining team has met with CVS representatives five times since the contract ended, according to company spokeswman Amy Thibault. She said they have made progress and have tentatively reached common ground on specific issues like reducing the number of years required to earn top rates.

Representatives for UFCW claim corporate management has been resistant to the union’s efforts to obtain a living wage. They have described the offers put forth by CVS so far as “insulting.”

The average CVS store clerk makes less than $20 per hour. The company reported about $11 billion in profits in 2023, UFCW officials said in a release.

“They don’t treat us like living breathing human beings,” Creager said. “We’re a number on a spreadsheet that’s costing them money. CVS needs to stop stepping over the bodies of workers like me, they’re working to death.”

Some of the people who encountered Creager and her colleagues in front of the Newport Beach CVS Thursday averted their eyes or sheepishly waved as they passed by on their way to accomplish errands. But about half of those who stopped to talk to them were convinced to shop elsewhere. Others who were sympathetic but needed to pick up important prescriptions agreed to opt out of the pharmacy’s rewards program in solidarity with workers.

Costa Mesa resident Carla Parker was planning on picking up medication for a friend on Thursday but decided to hold off until after the union’s demonstration. She said her sister works for a CVS in Palm Desert, has had to work late with minimal support and often struggles to cover bills on her salary.

“It would be my sister on the picket line,” she said. “They’re not asking for a bunch of money.”

A few passersby did scoff at the protesters in front of the pharmacy. And security guards were summoned to ask union members to leave about midway through the modest demonstration, but they asserted their right to organize and stayed.

“We’re not out here because we’re against you,” one of the guards told organizers Thursday. “But I’m just trying to do my job. Believe me, I get it; I have two jobs myself.”

Security guards attempt to get union members to leave a demonstration in front of CVS in Newport Beach on Thursday.

(Eric Licas)