In front of the Anaheim Convention Center, Angel Warner from the Rite Aid Organizing Committee and more than a dozen friends leafleted attendees at the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ 53rd annual conference.

The Nov. 2 – 7 event drew about 5,000 people. Most of them worked with union health care and pension trusts. Rite Aid set up in the exhibitors’ hall at the conference to market its pharmacy benefits management (PBM) company, Rite Aid Health Solutions. The ILWU, in coalition with 1199SEIU and UFCW, wanted conference-goers to get the big picture on Rite Aid. While the company was busy luring union money to its PBM, it was also busting unions on both coasts. Financial analysts are questioning its future, and the company still faces consumer fraud charges.

1199SEIU and UFCW represent Rite Aid retail workers, pharmacists, and pharmacy technicians. Rite Aid took over more than 1,800 Brooks and Eckerd stores last summer. Under Rite Aid’s contracts with SEIU and UFCW, workers in the new stores were supposed to be able to join the union with a simple showing of majority support.

But Rite Aid turned its back on those agreements and has been actively fighting the union. It has kept union reps out of the stores, and threatened and intimidated workers—just as the company has done in their Lancaster, CA distribution center where workers are trying to join ILWU warehouse Local 26.

Staff and activists from the three unions leafleted conference-goers, held a reception, and passed out hundreds of tote bags and water bottles bearing the slogan, “Trust Rite Aid? Think twice!”

—Marcy Rein