Maine Shaw’s Osco Pharmacists Ink Labor Contract

After months of deadlocked negotiations, pharmacists at Shaw’s grocery stores in 15 Maine locations have signed their first-ever collective bargaining agreement with the West Bridgewater, Mass.-based grocer, a banner of Albertsons Cos.

The approximately two dozen Osco pharmacists voted to join South Portland Maine-based Teamsters Local 340 in April 2015. According to the local, they’re among the first in their field to unionize.

“Collective bargaining by professionals and knowledge workers represents a new way forward for American labor,” noted Local 340 President Brett Miller. “Our job now is to provide strong union representation for our new members at Osco, and demonstrate that organized labor has a lot to offer in the information era. If more people follow the Osco pharmacists’ example, the labor movement will be able to secure a better deal for all working Americans in the 21^st century, just as it did in the 20th.”

Local 340 represents Osco pharmacists at Shaw’s stores in Auburn, Augusta, Bangor, Brunswick, Dover-Foxcroft, Ellsworth, Freeport, Lewiston, Portland, Rockland, Saco, Sanford, Scarborough, Waterville and Westbrook, Maine, as well as several thousand workers across the state in the public and private sectors.