Over 6,000 pharmacy professionals and graduating pharmacy students attended the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) annual meeting in Los Angeles in March. IAM Healthcare and The Pharmacy Guild/IAM hosted a booth staffed by a dynamic team of pharmacy professionals and IAM organizers. The union booth was within eyesight of the massive CVS Pharmacy booth.
The Pharmacy Guild/IAM, a new national union for pharmacy professionals, first of its kind within the IAM Union, has successfully organized numerous CVS pharmacies across the US. Dr. Chris Eggeman, a pharmacist at the Wakefield CVS store in Rhode Island, was among the TPG/IAM members on hand. He was there to listen to and help other pharmacy professionals with questions about how unionized labor could address the persistent issues within their industry.
“Too often pharmacists are expected to balance workload and safety” said Eggeman “We are clinical professionals that are part of the chain that care for patients. We want to work at the top of our licenses and provide quality care, with no mistakes, for our patients.”
The industry has a different goal – prescription volume, profits for shareholders, and bonuses for highly paid executives. Pharmacies in the U.S. took in $634 billion in revenue in 2024. Projections are that the businesses will take in over $880 billion a year by 2030. Over half of American adults have multiple chronic medical conditions that require medicine. About 330,000 pharmacy professionals serve the prescription needs of the 133 million Americans that need prescription drugs.
That is why representatives gather at annual events like APhA every year to network, communicate, and honor industry representatives. One of this year’s honorees was CVS Chief Pharmacy Officer Lucille Accetta, who was honored at the APhA’s President’s reception on Saturday evening. IAM Healthcare, nor The Pharmacy Guild/IAM were invited to the event.
Representatives from the union have been in negotiations with CVS throughout 2025, working towards first contracts for the newly organized members of The Pharmacy Guild/IAM.
“First contracts are difficult to negotiate, but we are making progress thanks to the outspoken leadership of pharmacists and technicians,” said IAM Special Representative Ivy Geilker. “The companies know that the enforcement of union labor contracts varies from one presidential administration to the next, so they drag their feet as much as possible. America’s pharmacy professionals deserve better.”
On the first evening of the meeting, The Pharmacy Guild/IAM had a difficult interaction with CVS’s Accetta who came to the union booth to chastise pharmacists for circulating a petition for safe staffing and against union busting by CVS..
It turns out that good fences do not necessarily make good neighbors in this exhibition hall, as Robert Frost’s poem the Mending Wall would say.
But the situation did lead to conversations that finally got Dr. Eggeman facetime with one of his corporate bosses. It was the first time a CVS executive expressed any willingness to hear the concerns of pharmacy professionals in months of negotiations.
“Front-line health care professionals are leveraging their professional power to drive meaningful change at CVS and other healthcare corporationsacross North America,” said IAM Healthcare Director Shane Brinton. “Meaningful changes grow from respectful dialogue, but dialogue requires a relationship, and relationships are a two-way street. These executives have a choice to make: will they follow the path of relationship-building and dialogue, or do they want to do this the hard way?”
IAM Healthcare and The Pharmacy Guild/IAM will meet at their own conference in California starting on May Day, the international workers’ holiday. IAM Union members from dozens of healthcare employers will convene to undertake their own strategic planning, networking, and honoring of outstanding movement leaders. IAM’s footprint in the healthcare industry has grown to over 12,000 members.
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