Updated Boycott Walgreens

Better stock up, condoms are 'birth control' so they may be totally banned.

Imo, people are getting too hung up on wither or not this occurred in the pharmacy area or at the regular cash registers. They probably have the same policy for all employees—if they have moral or religious objections they can pass the transaction to someone else. I don’t really understand what the point of that is for the person with the objection because it isn’t like they are preventing someone from using the item and how does it make them responsible for any “wrongdoing” but in this instance it sounds like the person made a big deal out of it and made the transaction embarrassing for the customer.

Religion doesn't have to come into it. They can simply say, the job includes these duties, including the sale of birth control products, alcohol, etc., to any paying customer. Are you willing and able to perform all of the job duties assigned? Why would they want to hire someone who won't do the job? Religious belief is not a disability; it's a choice.

Next thing you know people will be refusing to sell cute lingerie to unmarried women or yoga pants to anyone at all. Where does it end?

Religion + testosterone.

And yes, I get that there are protections under the law for sincerely held religious beliefs. I'm just saying that in a right to work state - the kind Republicans love most - it's very easy for an employer to hugely reduce an employee's shifts if their refusal to perform job functions becomes a burden, without having to prove that burden to anyone.

There is nothing stopping an employer from resolving the conflict (e.g., assigning a different task or moving the employee to another location). For example, in my Walgreens it’s fairly common for cashiers to also be stocking or manning the photo center. None of these people were tasked to make reproductive decisions for the public, nor were they hired to make moral judgments based on their personal values. Not a single one. I find Walgreens’ explanation to be weak and insufficient. If they continue on this path, then they deserve to be boycotted.

In the current job climate some employers will hire anyone breathing.

I was standing in a Target checkout line once and the person ahead of me had some bacon on the belt along with a bunch of other stuff. The cashier was a lady wearing a hijab and when she got to the person’s bacon she stopped ringing up the stuff and turned on her lane light like to call over a supervisor who came over, rang up the person’s bacon and bagged it. The cashier went back and finished the transaction, but seriously what a complete time wasting hassle not only for the customer but also for the supervisor. As a store manager, I wouldn’t want to hire anyone who would not be willing or able to perform all aspects of the job they were applying for.

On the flip side of the coin, I had a job at one point where I was handling a lot of cash as part of my job (think hundreds of thousands of dollars a day running through currency counters). After having the job for about a year, the place changed things around and put the cash handling part in a smaller more secure area that had very poor ventilation / air filtration and it quickly became apparent that I had a sensitivity to air pollution in the form of the paper dust coming off the bills. My doctor suggested not working in that space, but it was literally half of my job description. My boss refused to comply with my doctor’s recommendation and basically told me to work in there when I was scheduled or else. I ended up taking a different job in a different department. This was a little different because the situation changed well after I was hired, but the result was the same. If I couldn’t do the job I was hired to do, I needed find a different one.

I realize, of course, that you’re in TX with your state's retrograde reproductive laws, and this sort of religious objection may even be perfectly acceptable to stores. However, generally speaking, boycotts work when they reach sustained critical mass. Walgreens is a publicly traded company with shareholders who may not be thrilled with that. I also want to add that there exists a fundamental misunderstanding that reasonable accommodation is unlimited. Such is not the case. When an employee’s religious objection causes significant difficulty or cost upon the business operation, the employer has every right to reject the accommodation.

The job is to fill prescriptions as written by a medical professional. If they are unable to do this, they need to choose another profession.
As for the cashier, they should have been reassigned to the front of the store and not been allowed in the pharmacy again. People deserve to receive their medication without judgement from the pharmacy.

Thanking the lucky stars that I was born in Canada. As former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said, “There is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”, in 1967.

parli.ca/state-place-bedrooms-nation/

Is there a list somewhere over the 20 states are?

Do any Texas peas know if the HEB pharmacy is going along with this fascist nonsense? I still need to move my prescriptions from Walgreens but am not sure of the best choice.

From what I have heard, it all depends on who the pharmacist that sees the prescription, as to whether or not they will fill it. But as a company, no. I dont think there is a ban on it. 

Also, have you been following the federal case here in Amarillo? If the judge here sides with the Plaintiffs, mifepristone will be yanked for all markets, immediately. Knowing the judge on this case, I think its very likely that he will side with them.