anniversaries and threw company barbecues to
show appreciation. Those gestures have mainly
gone away, he said, and the company is asking
for more from its staff.
“Take a prescription off the phone from a doctor,
go get drive through, go help the three people
in line, pick up the three people waiting on hold,”
said Nota, 32. “Then lately there’s talk that we’re
actually going to be vaccinating patients. We’re
going to be getting certified to actually give flu
shots and stuff like that, but we’re not going to
get paid any extra.”
A CVS spokesman, Mike DeAngelis, said
the company has invested in tools to make
workflows more efficient. New phone
technology, for example, helps handle calls, and
automation is increasingly used to communicate
with doctors and receive new prescriptions.
CVS last year raised its minimum starting pay
to $11 an hour and stepped up pay raises, and
DeAngelis said turnover among pharmacy
technicians has declined.
Though Nota left his full-time job at CVS in 2014,
he continues to work there part time while
working full time in a pharmaceutical company
lab. He said he still enjoys the work at CVS
despite a changed culture:
“It’s all about rapid growth now. How can you
help the bottom line?”
Labor experts point to shifts in corporate culture
that have helped disrupt life for American
workers. The changes have been building
since the 1970s, but they say a broader range
of workers are now feeling them. Among the
trends is a move to outsource jobs not central to
a company’s business.
Businesses looking to “to get out of the messy
job of employing people” shed workers such as
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