Chicago Tribune, January 12, 2006, Thursday

Copyright 2006 Chicago Tribune Company
Chicago Tribune

January 12, 2006 Thursday
Chicago Final Edition

SECTION: BUSINESS ; ZONE C; Pg. 1

HEADLINE: Unions prescribe unity;
Steelworkers join pharmacist protest

BYLINE: By Barbara Rose, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Bruce Japsen and Stephen Franklin contributed to this report.

BODY:
Workers who make a living inside gritty industrial plants would seem unlikely champions for pharmacists, with their white coats and nearly six-figure salaries.
But there they stood Wednesday--steelworkers in short-brimmed caps alongside pharmacists wearing ties and overcoats--picketing in front of one of Walgreens' busiest stores in Chicago.
Together, members of the United Steelworkers union and the National Pharmacists Association were protesting Walgreen Co.'s failure to negotiate a new contract covering 1,100 pharmacists in Illinois and parts of Indiana.
The two formed an alliance--prelude to a possible merger--in July after the pharmacists' strike collapsed, when as many as half of the union's members crossed picket lines to go back to work.
What does a worker who retired from a sweaty $18-per-hour job at Chicago's Acme Steel have in common with a Walgreens pharmacist who earns $47 per hour?
"Money is not the issue," said retired Acme worker Roy Collins, past president of United Steelworkers International Local 1657. "It's how people are being treated."
The USW's offer of support is not surprising, labor experts said. A decades-long loss of manufacturing jobs is prompting old-line industrial unions to reach for potential new recruits wherever they can find them.
Meanwhile, cost pressures and consolidation sweeping industries such as drug retailing are eroding autonomy for professionals, creating what unions hope will be a more fertile organizing climate.
"Health care is where the game is being played now," said Robert Bruno, a labor expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Fewer than 10 percent of pharmacists belong to unions, including small independents like the National Pharmacists Association, which despite its name represents only local Walgreens pharmacists.
The giant USW, with 850,000 U.S. members, has been organizing outside its core manufacturing base for decades and already represents 10,000 pharmaceutical technicians and pharmacists in other states.
Marick Masters, a business professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said the USW's overtures to Walgreens pharmacists is "very consistent" with the union's "opportunistic organizing strategy," but he questioned whether such efforts would pay off.
"How are they going to represent people in that industry? That kind of organizing philosophy is one of the things that led to the split in the labor movement," he added.
Cornell University labor expert Richard Hurd disagreed, saying marriages of industrial and professional unions have worked despite cultural differences when unions "bring in staff representatives who can connect with professional workers."
That's exactly what the USW does, according to William Gibbons, a USW regional director who spoke at Wednesday's demonstration.
"We have pharmacists dealing with pharmacists' issues, and the pharmacists determine the policies that affect them," Gibbons said.
For now, the National Pharmacists Association remains independent while the USW contributes staff and organizing support for a Walgreens campaign. Wednesday's action, joined by labor supporters such as Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), kicked off a new phase.
Pharmacy union officials said major bargaining issues are not wages but Walgreens' move to limit pharmacists' input into staffing decisions. The company disbanded a committee of union and management representatives that evaluated staffing needs store by store, union officials said.
Other issues include measures that union officials said are designed to break the union: eliminating automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks and ending the requirement that pharmacists join the union.
Wednesday's protest featured union leaders' claims that work overloads jeopardize patients' safety because pharmacists are filling too many prescriptions per day at busy stores.
Walgreens executives, during the company's annual meeting before more than 2,500 shareholders at Navy Pier, brushed off the criticism. While boasting to shareholders that stores fill an average of 263 prescriptions per day, they said customers are not at risk.
"We have both the highest volume and best-staffed pharmacies in America," Walgreens Chief Executive David Bernauer said.
President Jeff Rein said Walgreens is much more automated than independent pharmacies and mom-and-pop drugstores, another advantage in its ability to provide prescriptions to customers more safely.
berose@tribune.com

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: United Steelworkers members support Walgreens pharmacists at an informational picketing Wednesday in Chicago.

PHOTO: U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (left) greets retired steelworker Ray Collins after Wednesday's rally outside the Walgreens store at Chicago and Michigan Avenues. Tribune photos by Tom Van Dyke.

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