Solidarity with community pharmacists

Did you know there are a group of 7,000 UK health professionals whose employer has spent 7 years, and who knows how much money, preventing them from gaining an independent voice at work?

What if I told you that part of this situation involves an entity, which is supposed to represent workers, that has signed an agreement with management committing to only “collective bargain” resources for their own officials and committing not to collective bargain for the employment terms of their members?

This is what happened at Boots when the company signed an agreement with the “Boots Pharmacists Association” (BPA) in 2012 and in law this is enough to block an independent trade union, the PDA Union, from following the statutory process for recognition at that employer.

The BPA is on the certification officer’s list of trade unions, but it is not independent. BPA was refused a certificate of independence in 2013. Part of the certification officer’s decision said: “looking at the picture as a whole that there emerges, in my judgement, a clear image of a union that has over the years been drawn into a situation in which it is indeed liable to interference by Boots… tending towards domination or control.”.

Boots is the largest and most well-known community pharmacy business in the UK. The multi-billion pound global enterprise is a vertically integrated business profiting from both wholesale and retail sales of medicines, with much of that coming from the taxpayer via the NHS. The company has tried “everything” to block their employed pharmacists from getting independent representation and that includes the blocking agreement signed in secret with BPA at a time the company was simultaneously talking to PDA Union about statutory recognition.

The good news is that the pharmacists have never given up and last summer six pharmacists, supported by PDA Union, applied to the Central Arbitration Committee to have the Boots-BPA agreement ended. Over 1,000 more employees pledged online to support the application, and after a further legal hearing at which the company and BPA’s joint attempt to give votes to senior managers (if they are a registered pharmacist) was overcome, a ballot is about to be held of almost 7,000 pharmacists working in Boots stores to end the blocking agreement.

The law under which this ballot is happening has never been used before in any sector and the union must achieve 40% of those eligible to vote, to vote in support, hence their #2780pharmacists campaign hashtag.

Ballot papers go out from 10 May and must be returned by 23 May in order to be counted. Anyone interested in supporting the PDA Union and their members can help by spreading the word about this historic trade union campaign.

  • Paul Day, National Officer, PDA Union @the_pda_union