Lockout Looms for Mail-Order Office in Las Vegas

By Jennifer Robison, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Apr. 5–A lockout of 500 employees at a local pharmaceutical mail-order center was scheduled to begin this morning pending the outcome of labor negotiations.

United Steelworkers had until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to accept the terms of a labor contract that would cover union technicians and warehouse employees who fill drug orders at the Las Vegas customer-service center of Medco Health Solutions, the nation’s largest mail-order pharmacy company.

The employees have been working without a contract since Sept. 1.

Soraya Balzac, a spokeswoman with New Jersey-based Medco, said the disagreement centers on health-care coverage. Medco has proposed a health-care cost-sharing plan that union officials have said is unacceptable.

Balzac said Medco would be open to negotiating with the union up until the deadline, which was an extension of a March 31 cutoff.

She said Medco will make up for the missing employees by hiring temporary workers, shifting existing staff in management, support and pharmacy into the fulfillment operation, asking Medco workers in other locations to volunteer to come to Las Vegas.

Medco, which had $38 billion in revenue in 2005, employs 850 workers at its Las Vegas center at 6225 Annie Oakley Drive.

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MHS,