Las Vegas Mail-Order Company Locks Out 500 Employees

By Hubble Smith, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Apr. 6–About 500 workers at Medco Health Solutions, a mail-order pharmaceutical company with Las Vegas operations at 6225 Annie Oakley Drive, were locked out Wednesday over a union contract dispute.

The company has been negotiating with United Steel Workers Local 675 for eight months and an extended deadline passed without a contract agreement at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, said Soraya Balzac, director of public affairs for Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based Medco.

Balzac said the union refuses to accept the cost-sharing arrangement for health care benefits and the issue has never been put to the local membership for a vote.

“Our last offer, we believe, was a substantial enhancement, a fair and competitive offer with wage increases and many union requests,” she said.

The same health plan rejected in Las Vegas has been accepted by most of Medco’s other 15,000 employees nationwide, she said.

Balzac said the company has implemented a plan to maintain uninterrupted service.

Marsha Coleman, who’s worked nearly 10 years in customer service research for Medco, said the lockout affects not only customer service, but inventory, packing and distribution.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said while walking a picket outside the plant. “Our benefits were raised but they didn’t give us compensation for what they went up.”

Jack Hammond, international representative of the union, said the pharmacy technicians are upset that Medco raised workers’ health-care costs on Jan. 1, increasing co-pays and deductibles, and doubling to $6,000 from $3,000 the annual out-of-pocket maximum an employee may pay.

Hammond said the technicians earn $10 to $15 an hour and can’t afford the additional health-care costs.

Sharon Davis, a nine-year Medco employee, said she acquired extra work after company layoffs a couple of years ago.

“It first started as a good company to work for,” she said, “but over the years, you got the top dogs cashing out of their stock at $20,000 and … they don’t offer us any stock. They took away tuition reimbursement, took away our retirement fund. They don’t match us on our 401(k).”

Pickets were carrying signs that said they were “illegally locked out,” but Balzac of Medco said that’s not true. Under the National Labor Relations Act, the company was allowed to lock out the workers after the last offer on Friday, but had extended negotiations through Tuesday, she said.

The workers have been working without a contract for the past eight months.

Medco is using company managers, staff-registered pharmacists, third-party outsourcing and temporary employees, as well as nonunion employees, to fill customer orders, Balzac said. The Las Vegas union workers represent less than 5 percent of Medco’s total employment.

The two sides met Wednesday and will continue negotiations, although Balzac said the company will not allow the union employees to work until the contract is ratified.

Medco had $38 billion in revenue in 2005 and employs 850 people at its Las Vegas mail order center.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

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MHS,