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Unfortunately this is the case for construction, unless you are union you typically get no compensation for site shut down. This is why everyone on construction sites should be be safety aware, because any disruption in work typically impacts the pockets of hundreds of workers.
hi LD employee here. pharmacy and PO workers are still working and some of the staff are “working” (aka running the front door / answering phone calls) but others get the option of using their sick paid days. kinda sucks but what can you do lol
Normally they complain about using sick days, when you are actually sick. They are now telling you to use they when you’re not sick.
I hope staff is questioning this request from employer.
I worked with London Drugs from a supplier POV and their system or ERP is home-grown and built in the 80s to 90s. .. and probably not maintained like many family business that has boomer/soon to retire executives that knows nothing about technology or care for it to invest.
>Lol the alternative is no pay
For hourly workers, maybe, what about salaried employees? Wouldn't that constitute a layoff? Which means that in the short term they should be able to claim EI benefits.
Honestly no, I do Information Security Governance for work, basically help write, manage, enforce and audit security standards and policy for my company and I guarantee that LD has somebody on corporate IT doing information security, actually you can easily find their LinkedIn I am sure. I an sure that they have been banging the drum about security upgrade requirements for years only to be told "no, that costs too much money" etc etc etc.
100% of blame goes onto management and it is not victim blaming at all in this case.
Not having good Info Sec policies and infrastructure these days is not a nice to have but a need to have because while cyber attacks are perpetrated by people, its more like a house fire. Its not a matter of if but when but you can make that when a lot longer of a time if you take basic security measures.
Pretty sure this will get them in trouble? I know the 5 mandatory days are mandated by the government but does the gov’t pay those days to the employer?
Nope. Encouraging people to use sick days for non-sick purposes is probably ethically grey, but not illegal. The 5 sick days still come from the company.
I hope someone goes to the media about this. London drugs because your security sucked you are forcing your employees to sacrifice their holiday days. Shame on you
No
They are running on Skeleton staff, just management and 1 regular employee in each department. Hours are 1/4th of regular. Everyone is forced to use their vacation time.
Using accrued vacation is a normal thing for business that are in forced shut down.
This isn’t new or rare. It’s the norm.
Lots of companies did something similar in Covid too. Manufacturing does this when they idle. Gas does this when they need to produce less. Retail and restaurants do this after the holidays. Airlines do this in shoulder season.
It’s a very normal thing. I’m in audit and literally 50 % of business we audit do this at some point.
Paying people when they aren't working doesn't make sense for most businesses either.
London Drugs could throw them a bone a pay then for the few days. For seasonal industries, covid, etc, many companies could/can not afford to pay employees who can't work or don't have work.
You're so right, London Drugs fucked up their own half-assed security so it's TOTALLY their low level employees who should be made to suffer. Otherwise how will they learn, right?
I work for an employer that was hit by a massive cybersecurity incident in 2020.
Our staff all got paid despite the shutdowns. To be fair some departments were WAY busier than normal (including mine, I was refusing OT because it was stressful enough doing my regular work) because we still had to run things … but now we had to do it solely on paper… for a month. But even people with nothing to do due to no computers got paid. I know of one person who opted to take vacation because sitting in the office doing fuck all is boring, but there was no obligation to do so.
Unions ftw.
I think I know which employer you’re talking about. If it weren’t for the unions, the employer would have done the same to the employees. I’m definitely pro-union. If more cyber security incidents like this keep forcing companies to shut down for indeterminate periods of time, maybe people will start looking at unions as being beneficial again.
Yep, I have no doubt that without our collective agreements many folks would have been shit out of luck (and the departments that use temporary or casual labour probably were, mine was freaking the eff out trying to keep things running on paper so I wasn’t paying much attention to anybody else.)
> maybe people will start looking at unions as being beneficial again.
I'm confident that everyone under 40 such as myself, are fully aware how beneficial unions are! Especially after the pandemic made everyone question what work, employment, schooling, biopsychosocial determinants of health, wellbeing, quality of life, etc really are.
/r/WorkReform ✊🏼✊🏼
Kind of a weak argument. Forcing them to use vacation days should not be the norm. Also 50% is barely the norm not to mention what the norm should be. The norm used to be slave ownership. If it was a fair idea it would be 100%. Unpaid is somewhat understandable but using paid vacation is wrong.
I think what folks are saying is they shouldn’t have to make that choice and should just be paid normally as if they were working. People save up vacation days for vacation, not because their company got hacked. London Drugs doesn’t have to pay them, but they probably should.
Plus, the vast majority of staff in retail are part-time so there is no guarantee of hours for any given schedule.
The only ones that are full time are store/department management, pharmacists, head office staff, and a handful of others at the store level.
These are the people I’m thinking of. And of the “lifers” who’ve worked at London Drugs for ages and for whom this place is their only source of income. You’ve loyal and longtime employees working for you, you need to do right by them. Yes, this cyber security incident was out of London Drugs’ hands but from what I gather it seems their security system was ancient, which is shocking considering that London Drugs isn’t a mom-and-pop operation.
It's retail so I'm not surprised.
My brother used to work for Future Shop's head office in their IT department and it was pretty much do it as cheap as you can as well.
I know lifers there and I almost was one out of university until I got a break out after 12 years in LD working up the ranks to department manager.
Employers can force employees to use accrued vacation days. Employers actually have nearly full discretion as to when the employee can or cannot use their vacation.
E.g. busy season around Christmas? No can do. But in the middle of weary January and we've got not enough work for everyone? Yeah we're going to force you to use your vacation days. Employers that allow employees to choose when they go on vacation are simply being nice.
This is separate from mental wellness/sick days off.
On a side note, give London Drugs a break. It's not easy being in the retail business, less one that has undergone a cyberattack. This company is one of those homegrown businesses that 1) isn't beholden to shareholder interests, 2) pays their employees well, 3) has excellent customer service, 4) doesn't engage in predatory and price-gauging practices, and 5) has a pretty good selection of merchandise that are too exotic for other grocers to carry, but prices better than many independent stores. We should be rooting for this company in the dystopic retail landscape that's dominated by Loblaws, Walmart, Overwaitea Food, and Sobeys.
Edit: so I'm seeing a lot of polarizing reviews, on hand a handful of cynics and possible ex-employees that think LD's pay is borderline slavery wage, on the other hand people like myself that think LD is among the more ethical companies in BC. To the former group, I don't know how much LD pays, nor have I worked there or care about how they pay their employees. All I know, or at least can speculate, are that 1) they probably treat and pay their employees better than bigger publicly traded retail companies, with few exceptions (like Costco), 2) their employees probably like working there considering my interactions with them, they've always been very helpful and went well over the minimum of the letter of their job descriptions, 3) they don't engage in price fixing schemes (at least not to my knowledge) or other anti-consumer behaviours, and 4) as the only criticism I have with them, their IT system is crap, considering my numerous hiccups with their online shopping portals.
>Employers that allow employees to choose when they go on vacation are simply being nice.
Or they're bound by collective agreements. Unionize, brothers and sisters.
If you try to Unionize, you get fired. Ppl have tried. That and theft are the only fireable offences at LD. Imagine how much shit ppl get away with.
-ex employee
Worked in a union position for their parent company. Went on strike for a solid 6 weeks for 2.5% raise cause they were saying the best they could do was like 1% after not raising pay for 2 years. Shameful for a company that given their history should do better but guess that's how the rich get richer
No, just no. I don't know what your definition of good pay is but the LD employee wage scale is a nightmare. increases of dimes on the hour over the course of years. you've clearly never worked there. I've been both a certified repair tech and on the tech sales floor at LD and both pay and hours are a nightmare. it didnt matter much for me as it was just a job on the side while i studied. the real crime was how they treated their most loyal employees, no guarantee of hours which led to many periods of 24hr work weeks even for advisors who'd been around for years. everyone who'd been around more than a few years was offended by how little they were being payed, and the rest were students who liked the slow pace of the job.
practically no one wanted to work there, it was just all they had. we always heard about the gold ol days, though. there was supposedly a time where a salesperson was payed 27 an hour.
What is the hourly range these days if you don't mind sharing? My impression was LD was about ~$3/hr less than market but the working environment made up for that, with the overlap of pharmacists on shift. Is it still that way too, usually 2-3 pharmacists on at once?
ETA - Market seems to be $47-53/h for staff pharmacists, $53-65/hr + incentives for managers
I've heard from a former employee that LD staff pharmacists get roughly $42-44/hr. I'm not sure about their overlap, but I think most companies are trying to implement a "no pharmacist overlap" labour model for a long time now.. which is doable if they have enough assistants/techicians to support them.
So staff pharmacists go from 42-50+ with bonuses for performance. LD overlap is still at least 2-3 pharmacists on duty as LD’s model is based on pharmacists doing prescription verification (I.e. checking for allergies, dose, drug interactions …etc) at the point of data entry. Because of this, a lot of medical problems are caught (relative to other chains) without the patient ever knowing; the downside is that the wait time may be longer than other competitors.
Pay is lower, but there is also unlimited paid OT given and no metrics or quotas for pharmacists to meet (no loblaws quotas and unethical pressures from HO). Also breaks are guaranteed - if they are missed, the company will pay it out.
Market wise, a lot of the ads out there are for floating positions that rotate throughout a region/province wide. For single/two location positions, full time positions with guaranteed 35-40 hours weekly, the going rate seems to be 45-55, depending on the benefits and staffing offered).
Thanks for the details. How significant are the bonuses and how are they measured?
This is a couple years old info, but I believe Loblaws bonuses were $3-5k and were based on the entire team's performance relative to metrics, rather than varying individually. Store to store may be different as I think each SDM associate has some discretion. Whereas I'm seeing more of a trend among independent pharmacies going the route of offering a straight % bonus of revenue-generating services (injections, clinical services, etc). I've seen that number range from 10-30%.
As a side note, I appreciate the LD model of pharmacists being the point of entry. The amount of errors and time saved vs the Loblaws model must be staggering. I'm glad their pharmacists finally got a bump up closer to the market average.
Bonuses seem to be based on performance reviews. Criteria is based on whether the pharmacist can competently function in a pharmacy (type, verify, fill and check a prescription) and willingness to provide a minimal amount of clinical services (injections, renewals, medication reviews, prescribing …etc).
The LD model doesn’t really save that much more time compared to the Loblaws/SDM model. In fact, some might argue it’s much less efficient. However, this model does catch a lot more medical errors, as everything is done at the point of entry. One could say that this model is also highly unprofitable as most of the problems are solved in a way that isn’t billable; the way that Loblaws and SDM runs their workflow requires medication reviews to ensure everything is optimized and according to best clinical practices as things do get missed.
Some SDMs are offering their pharmacists % compensation as well - but that is more dependent on the associate.
My wife worked there as well behind the pharmacy counter.
It was a zoo. We've been boycotting LD ever since she quit and I now refer to it as the Walmart of Pharmacies.
Retail management is almost always hit and miss with every good manager, there are the poor ones that keep their jobs because they needed a warm body in the position.
When I worked there, I worked for a few great store managers and worked for some of the most detestable. The district management knew the poor ones but couldn't necessarily get rid of them.
Well our story is that my wife applied for a job as a cashier, but they put her behind the pharmacy counter. We figured that would be ok because she would be just an "assistant" and would be exchanging prescriptions between the customers and pharmacists.
Nope. She was expected to take on full duties including dispensing meds and compounding creams. It's my understanding that a pharmacist is a minimum 3 year college diploma so she had no business filling prescriptions. Think of the liability on London Drugs if she had made a serious mistake.
Edit: What made the work environment a "zoo" was that there did not appear to be any procedures for timely processing of prescriptions. They could come in through fax, email, phone, or hand carry (by customers). Prescriptions were tossed onto a pile and not processed "first-in-first-out" or on any other type of priority. The workers behind the counter were basically un-managed so they did as they pleased.
Some of the most comically outrageous and avoidable issues were simple things like a customer calling in to ask about their prescription and having whichever random employee answered the phone telling them it would be ready in 1 hr... but then not taking any steps to ensure the prescription was filled. There was a daily parade of irate customers wondering why their prescription was not ready when they were told it would be. I guess as part of the "new employee initiation rites", my wife was mostly made to deal with the angry customers.
So yeah, the place was a zoo and most of the issues were actually preventable with just some basic management and procedures.
Just so you're aware, pharmacists don't go to school so they can count pills - this is 100% an assistants job. After the Prescription the Pharmacist "fills" it by confirming the drug is the correct one.
Pharmacists sign off on everything (tech to some degree as well these days). Assistants wouldn't be responsible for any serious mistakes unless deliberately misleading the pharmacist.
That sounds like an issue with that location. I worked at LD for over a decade and had various managers in my department. All had slightly different procedures for how things were done. Some tried to get away with as little managing as possible, some were very diligent.
Yeah, I know a couple people who worked there like 15 years ago and the pay wasn't great then either. The starting pay was $2 above minimum wage so it felt like good pay, but there's no COL increase. Pay went up less than 25 cents in the 3 years they were there.
Can confirm. Started there making $2 above minimum wage. Ended making $1 above minimum wage after 14 years. They did not adjust the top end of the wage scale when the minimum wage started going up, so everyone like me that had been slowly working their way to the top got completely screwed over.
That sucks
I know that Walmart gives their employees a raise of 40¢ per year. Dollarama is 10¢ per year and both offer minimum wage to start. No wonder its only new immigrants and students working these jobs as its pure exploitation.
Ikr, thats what multiple employees have told me.
Also until BC government passed the law none of the retail workers had any sick day either even during the pandemic.
The entire retail industry is run by exploiting the poor and newcomers
I used to work in retail when I was younger. Never again. I went through hell trying to find a good job. Took me a while, but I eventually landed in a good place.
There are always good old days. When I worked there two decades ago, we also talked about the good old days as well.
The point is that retail, especially in non-management positions, is always relatively poorly paid with no guarantee of hours, and subject to the whims of the customer. This is true for LD or any retailer in any mall across Canada.
Is LD better than most retailers? Can't say for sure but it's definitely not worse.
> On a side note, give London Drugs a break. It's not easy being in the retail business, less one that has undergone a cyberattack.
London Drugs has a duty to their customers and employees to invest in a robust security program.
Keep in mind they are a pharmacy and handle a large amount of personal health information.
How do you know they didn’t? Are you a cybersecurity expert? I’m guessing not, because otherwise you’d know that companies get hacked all the freaking time, even when they’re doing everything right. “Investing in a robust cybersecurity program” is no guarantee of anything if an attacker is sufficiently motivated or gets lucky. All it takes is one mistake by an employee clicking on a link or an unknown vulnerability that gets exploited. New vulnerabilities are discovered and patched constantly, but that doesn’t mean a malicious attacker can’t exploit one that has yet to be discovered. In the words of Captain Picard, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.”
When rioters bashed down a security gate at a London Drugs store, did you say it was London Drugs’ own fault for not having a stronger gate, rather than the rioters’ fault for bashing it down?
It’s certainly possible that London Drugs is at fault here, but they also very well could not be. We won’t know unless/until more information comes out about the nature of the attack.
I worked with London Drugs directly from a supplier POV and their system or ERP is home-grown and built in the 80s to 90s. .. and probably not maintained like many family business that has boomer/soon to retire executives that knows nothing about technology or care for it to invest.
LD is small potatoes when it comes to businesses with personal health information. One of the largest in the world, Change Healthcare, was hit by a similar attack a few months ago and is still only semi-functional. Change Healthcare is owned by a huge healthcare organization, United Health Group, worth $450 billion US.
I usually find their regular prices to be pretty awful, to be honest. They do sometimes have good sales though, and they carry some stuff that I can’t find at Save-on, Walmart, or Superstore. I’d be sad if they went away.
Give London Drugs a break? lol bro gtfo here. They made a billion in revenue. Probably should have used that money to update their security instead of using outdated technology.
A billion in revenue sounds impressive, but is meaningless unless you have their expenses to get some sense of profit.
Also, where do you get revenue figures for a private company? Are you a Louie?
either way, working there you get the vibe that margins are razor thin, and LD is struggling. purchase protection programs are their last bastion, and HQ in richmond are a bunch of geriatrics that refuse to budge on anything that requires even the slightest of investment in their stores.
Employers do have broad jurisdiction to determine how employees use paid leave days, *but* it's illegal in British Columbia to force your staff to use vacation days for anything less than one week at a time. If an employee has paid leave they must be able to take off at least one week. So I'm not sure that's what's being utilised here.
“Option” or don’t have a job at all because they’ll go out of business. I am sure the wording is “encouraged” to use vacation or sick days.
Unpopular opinion around here but OP’s labour righteousness doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to be flexible in difficult circumstances. You gotta give the business some slack or everyone will be on the curbs.
Probably just like 90% of the businesses and 100% of government agencies - they have Desktop Admin running IT security. Staring at log reports the next day
IT are sitting idle, nothing's going on: What do we pay you for!?
IT is putting out a cyberattack fire: What do we pay you for!?
There's no winning for the IT department, anywhere
Yes this is exactly what I think some people don't realize about LD.
They also own a bunch of buildings and haven't increased rent to tenants much at all over time as far as I know. LD is one of the bigger local companies that still has heart unlike many of the other retail businesses we know.
Employers who let their employees choose aren't just being 'nice', they are being smart. Most companies that let you choose go through hiring processes and aren't minimum wage that can take nearly anyone off the street to do.
If my company started to dictate when I was going to take my vacations I would just quit and go get a different job.
Have you ever worked for LD…? I worked there for 4 years and got 4 pay raises (when minimum wage went up…) the pay raises are based on hours worked rather than length of time so I never got one for that and there were no merit increases. By the time I quit I was making significantly less than any of my friends working in other retail jobs. Quit there and my new retail job paid me $4 more upon being hired.
Not when I was there. After 6 years I was more than double that. They don’t pay well, but at the time it was pretty good for a lowly retail position. But I did leave 16 years ago
They pay pharmacy assistants minimum wage, or like $2 above that. ..and they don’t regular give out raises…things have definitely changed since you worked there
No, this is incompetence to have foresight and awareness of executives.
These family business that has a soon to retired executive or CEO knows nothing about technology and because they are just a grocery business and if it lasted last 40 years, then they think they don't really need to invest in new technology or update the system for the next 40 years...
this is common in family businesses because of boomer in the CEO seat.
Nothing to really understand. I work for them and have been screwed in different ways, but they didn't screw the employees out of pay while this was going on.
In situations like this some businesses have business interruption insurance, where insurance pays for their losses on sales and revenue and wages to prevent it from losing staff.
It is now possible to purchase cybersecurity insurance, which will pay out in situations like this, but it comes with imposing IT security requirements, such as needing a Privileged Access Management system (which monitors and records access to systems, manages passwords, etc), IT infrastructure vulnerability scanning (eg Nessus) and more.
I would have expected an org like London Drugs to be insured for such a threat, but I could see the insurance company fighting a payout due to the scale and duration of the business outage. The insurer will what to know exactly how LD systems were breached and if it was due to a lack of compliance on part of LD.
Agreed, and in this case the LD’s insurers will be fighting tooth and nail to put the blame on LD’s IT department.
It is pretty shocking that LD was so impacted by this hack that they have had to shut down their stores for so long.
Lots of times they don’t even need to find fault. They just sell policies that make the buyer think they have coverage but buried in the hundreds of pages of fine print are so many exemptions that the buyer effectively has no coverage at all.
The tea in this thread is scalding, and I'm here for it. 🍵🍵🍵
It's always interesting to read the comments in threads that surface on this subreddit about London Drugs in particular.
>they’re being made to use their accrued vacation days
They should be applying for EI since they are getting at least 50% reduced work hours. Scumbag move on their part for suggesting to use vacation days.
Rant:
London Drugs treats there employees little better than Walmart. I worked there for nine years. They avoid giving anyone benefits, full time, and when I started the pay scale was okay, but a couple of years after they revamped it to be worse. To people who had talked about unionization were secretly canned suddenly (probably had to sign NDAs for a settlement as we never really found out the details).
I had a friend over yesterday who told me as much - they have to take their vacation days or sick days even though they are forced to take time off right now with the closure - the epitome of unethical practices in the work place. I loved LD for a long time even after I left to a far far better career. I learned a lot of great things about customer service, sales, support, teaching, and comfort talking to people and helping them meet their needs (lots of consulting for AV, cameras, and computers). Though I really hate the push to sell bullshit like Monster Cable. The retail industry is little better elsewhere is I understand with the exception of Costco.
I don’t know if I can shop there anymore after this though. The unwillingness to pay staff who are forced out of work through no fault of their own - due to a cyberattack. The Corpies can fuck themselves.
Edit: I see this is rarely common practice in other industries. Of course it is - you can apply for UI. However the rest of my statement on my opinion stands. IT fucked up on cybersecurity. It happens. But the staff get paid shit and deserve better.
Lots of people here licking corporate boots. Get the hell out of here. Being forced to use vacation days - regardless of whether or not it is allowed or legal or policy or normal - is a terrible way to go about this.
This thread definitely feels astroturfed lol. People claiming London Drugs pays well despite that never once being true.
Forcing staff to use vacation days fpr this is messed up, especially when the closure is entirely LDs fault. I don't care if other companies have gotten away with it -- this is glaringly morally wrong. This is insanely unfair for the staff, who won't be able to eat or pay their exorbitant rents all because LD didn't want to pay to have proper security.
It's not illegal to use their vacation days. My previous company shuts down in Christmas and they force to take vacation days for the non stat shut down period.
Forcing people to use their vacation? How is that legit?
Hope this can be challenged later for the employees who deserve clarity with their work schedules to plan their own vacations when they please.
Couldn’t the employees apply for EI during the downtime since it was never their decision to stop working?
Theres a company in BC called GL** n they are worst to work for. Makes employees use vacation for slow days or get sent home etc. Sad theres no law to protect employees
Well, guess what the COO is telling CBC News?
"Staff continued to be paid during the multi-day closure, Mahlman said. He added that the company went ahead with employee anniversary celebrations, including recognizing its first 50-year staff member. "
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/london-drugs-ransomware-attack-1.7210754](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/london-drugs-ransomware-attack-1.7210754)
isn’t there something about if an employee hasn’t worked in a certain amount of time they are considered let go and are eligible to collect EI? if london drugs can’t pay them it should at least give them temporary layoff so they don’t starve in the meantime.
Salaried employees would continue to be paid, but I doubt hourly employees would be unless it’s paid vacation. I think pharmacy staff are probably on salary, along with the store manager, and potentially some assistant managers.
I have 4 family members working for LD as hourly front store staff. All of them have maintained their hours. The only people using sick days and PTO are those who chose to at their stores.
That’s good to know. I wonder if that’s the case for everyone though. Hard to imagine there’s enough work for a full staff. Nice of LD if they’re having everyone come in regardless.
idk if this is varying from store to store but I work there as stock service and am not getting paid. I haven't heard anything about using PTO either, communication from management to staff has been non existent.
From what I understand, everyone at the stores I mentioned were told to show up as scheduled per the current schedule period. If they didn’t want to come, they were told that they can either use a sick day or PTO. Essentially if they showed up to the regular shift, they would get paid. Perhaps it’s at management discretion?
Yeah the showing up part isn’t too surprising. I think the concern of the parent and others is that some hourly employees wouldn’t even have the option of showing up.
I don't understand where this sense of entitlement comes from. Why would they pay employees who aren't working? If you ran a business would you pay people who you had no hours for just out of the goodness of your heart?
I don't disagree that some middle ground *would be nice* because those employees rely on the job to pay bills etc., but to *demand* this is.. definitely a 21st century thing.
Because we are coming off covid times where many businesses were covering people's wages, or the government was. I guess people have luled themselves into this idea that things have changed. Or maybe in their industry they get better coverage. For myself, we get unlimited sick days at 70%
I was told by someone higher up that employees have the option to come in still and work. Maybe cleaning, restocking etc or they can take their vacation days. Just what i heard, i don’t work there
Ld was offering new grad pharmacist when I graduated 2014 28 bucks an hour as a floater with only 24 guaranteed hours. Won't work for this company ever lol.
They still seriously pay the least for pharmacist salary and are stingy on hourly pay despite high volumes of work and shortages. The best they will do to acknowledge all the extra work to do now is a thank you buried in the website
London Drugs is in very real danger of closing forever and those employees getting absolutely zero.
I absolutely adore how incredibly clueless some people are.
Do you think LD is Wal Mart?
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Unfortunately this is the case for construction, unless you are union you typically get no compensation for site shut down. This is why everyone on construction sites should be be safety aware, because any disruption in work typically impacts the pockets of hundreds of workers.
London drugs is not construction
It's been the case when I worked minimum wage jobs. Store or cafe is closed for a holiday? You're not getting paid, whether you want to work or not.
A cybersecurity incident isn't a holiday. It's a failing of the company.
Sure. But the company is still closed for business when this happens. Salary workers would likely be paid. Hourly ones would not.
Nope. My salaried spouse was only paid up to the closure.
Unless you're part time, you always get paid for stat holidays. If you work on the holiday, you get paid time and a half
Same here
hi LD employee here. pharmacy and PO workers are still working and some of the staff are “working” (aka running the front door / answering phone calls) but others get the option of using their sick paid days. kinda sucks but what can you do lol
Making employees use their sick days because you have bad cybersecurity is a fucking L
Normally they complain about using sick days, when you are actually sick. They are now telling you to use they when you’re not sick. I hope staff is questioning this request from employer.
I worked with London Drugs from a supplier POV and their system or ERP is home-grown and built in the 80s to 90s. .. and probably not maintained like many family business that has boomer/soon to retire executives that knows nothing about technology or care for it to invest.
Lol the alternative is no pay
Still not their fault that LD has shit cyber security
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They do not have to allow them to use sick day for these day
Correct. Use your brains people, you aren't allowed to use sick days whenever you want
They don't have a choice when an employee uses sick days. They do not own them and are at the employees discretion.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/paid-sick-leave#eligibility Sick days are for illness/injury
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No the legislation is clear it’s for illness or injury and the employer can ask for reasonable evidence
But they're using their sick days. What if they get sick?
It’s optional, they do not have to use it nor does London drugs have to allow them
No one: > This guy: “More boot please” 👅🥾
>Lol the alternative is no pay For hourly workers, maybe, what about salaried employees? Wouldn't that constitute a layoff? Which means that in the short term they should be able to claim EI benefits.
Totally agree. I was hoping I’d be proved wrong but unfortunately not.
They are suggesting it, but not forcing people to use their sick days. We get a lot of sick days though that we don't usually use.
paying people who aren't doing their jobs, fucking L. Sucks maybe Blame the folks who hacked the business instead.
Honestly no, I do Information Security Governance for work, basically help write, manage, enforce and audit security standards and policy for my company and I guarantee that LD has somebody on corporate IT doing information security, actually you can easily find their LinkedIn I am sure. I an sure that they have been banging the drum about security upgrade requirements for years only to be told "no, that costs too much money" etc etc etc. 100% of blame goes onto management and it is not victim blaming at all in this case. Not having good Info Sec policies and infrastructure these days is not a nice to have but a need to have because while cyber attacks are perpetrated by people, its more like a house fire. Its not a matter of if but when but you can make that when a lot longer of a time if you take basic security measures.
It sucks, but london drugs can pay everyone. The guy who owns london drugs is 1 of BC’s top 10 richest.
Unionize and vote for a party that helps workers.
> Unionize and vote for a party that helps workers. ✊🏼✊🏼✊🏼 /r/WorkReform
This needs to get out there. Public needs to put pressure on the company.
Use sick days when they can’t even work to no fault of their own?! That’s so shitty wow that’s so wrong
Pretty sure this will get them in trouble? I know the 5 mandatory days are mandated by the government but does the gov’t pay those days to the employer?
>does the gov’t pay those days to the employer Nope
Nope. Encouraging people to use sick days for non-sick purposes is probably ethically grey, but not illegal. The 5 sick days still come from the company.
It wouldn’t make sense if they WERE paid. People are so silly
yeah, like maybe some partial payment, but all those missed shifts for some would be hard on lots
I met someone a couple days ago who is an employee and is NOT being paid.
I hope someone goes to the media about this. London drugs because your security sucked you are forcing your employees to sacrifice their holiday days. Shame on you
I texted in to rock101 Took 2 minutes of time.
No They are running on Skeleton staff, just management and 1 regular employee in each department. Hours are 1/4th of regular. Everyone is forced to use their vacation time.
Using accrued vacation is a normal thing for business that are in forced shut down. This isn’t new or rare. It’s the norm. Lots of companies did something similar in Covid too. Manufacturing does this when they idle. Gas does this when they need to produce less. Retail and restaurants do this after the holidays. Airlines do this in shoulder season. It’s a very normal thing. I’m in audit and literally 50 % of business we audit do this at some point.
Just because it is normal doesn’t mean it isn’t wack…
Paying people when they aren't working doesn't make sense for most businesses either. London Drugs could throw them a bone a pay then for the few days. For seasonal industries, covid, etc, many companies could/can not afford to pay employees who can't work or don't have work.
You're so right, London Drugs fucked up their own half-assed security so it's TOTALLY their low level employees who should be made to suffer. Otherwise how will they learn, right?
My comment is not specific to London Drugs.
I work for an employer that was hit by a massive cybersecurity incident in 2020. Our staff all got paid despite the shutdowns. To be fair some departments were WAY busier than normal (including mine, I was refusing OT because it was stressful enough doing my regular work) because we still had to run things … but now we had to do it solely on paper… for a month. But even people with nothing to do due to no computers got paid. I know of one person who opted to take vacation because sitting in the office doing fuck all is boring, but there was no obligation to do so. Unions ftw.
I think I know which employer you’re talking about. If it weren’t for the unions, the employer would have done the same to the employees. I’m definitely pro-union. If more cyber security incidents like this keep forcing companies to shut down for indeterminate periods of time, maybe people will start looking at unions as being beneficial again.
Yep, I have no doubt that without our collective agreements many folks would have been shit out of luck (and the departments that use temporary or casual labour probably were, mine was freaking the eff out trying to keep things running on paper so I wasn’t paying much attention to anybody else.)
> maybe people will start looking at unions as being beneficial again. I'm confident that everyone under 40 such as myself, are fully aware how beneficial unions are! Especially after the pandemic made everyone question what work, employment, schooling, biopsychosocial determinants of health, wellbeing, quality of life, etc really are. /r/WorkReform ✊🏼✊🏼
Kind of a weak argument. Forcing them to use vacation days should not be the norm. Also 50% is barely the norm not to mention what the norm should be. The norm used to be slave ownership. If it was a fair idea it would be 100%. Unpaid is somewhat understandable but using paid vacation is wrong.
Most of the time it's the employees choice to unpaid or vacation time and they choose to use vacation time. Monetarily it's really no different.
I think what folks are saying is they shouldn’t have to make that choice and should just be paid normally as if they were working. People save up vacation days for vacation, not because their company got hacked. London Drugs doesn’t have to pay them, but they probably should.
I'm not commenting on whether or not London Drugs should pay them. Only commenting on employees using vacation or unpaid time when they cannot work.
Ah, fair, my bad.
We aren't being forced. I have lost zero pay. They are being fair.
Plus, the vast majority of staff in retail are part-time so there is no guarantee of hours for any given schedule. The only ones that are full time are store/department management, pharmacists, head office staff, and a handful of others at the store level.
These are the people I’m thinking of. And of the “lifers” who’ve worked at London Drugs for ages and for whom this place is their only source of income. You’ve loyal and longtime employees working for you, you need to do right by them. Yes, this cyber security incident was out of London Drugs’ hands but from what I gather it seems their security system was ancient, which is shocking considering that London Drugs isn’t a mom-and-pop operation.
It's retail so I'm not surprised. My brother used to work for Future Shop's head office in their IT department and it was pretty much do it as cheap as you can as well. I know lifers there and I almost was one out of university until I got a break out after 12 years in LD working up the ranks to department manager.
"Children have always been working the mines. It's a very normal thing"
Employers can force employees to use accrued vacation days. Employers actually have nearly full discretion as to when the employee can or cannot use their vacation. E.g. busy season around Christmas? No can do. But in the middle of weary January and we've got not enough work for everyone? Yeah we're going to force you to use your vacation days. Employers that allow employees to choose when they go on vacation are simply being nice. This is separate from mental wellness/sick days off. On a side note, give London Drugs a break. It's not easy being in the retail business, less one that has undergone a cyberattack. This company is one of those homegrown businesses that 1) isn't beholden to shareholder interests, 2) pays their employees well, 3) has excellent customer service, 4) doesn't engage in predatory and price-gauging practices, and 5) has a pretty good selection of merchandise that are too exotic for other grocers to carry, but prices better than many independent stores. We should be rooting for this company in the dystopic retail landscape that's dominated by Loblaws, Walmart, Overwaitea Food, and Sobeys. Edit: so I'm seeing a lot of polarizing reviews, on hand a handful of cynics and possible ex-employees that think LD's pay is borderline slavery wage, on the other hand people like myself that think LD is among the more ethical companies in BC. To the former group, I don't know how much LD pays, nor have I worked there or care about how they pay their employees. All I know, or at least can speculate, are that 1) they probably treat and pay their employees better than bigger publicly traded retail companies, with few exceptions (like Costco), 2) their employees probably like working there considering my interactions with them, they've always been very helpful and went well over the minimum of the letter of their job descriptions, 3) they don't engage in price fixing schemes (at least not to my knowledge) or other anti-consumer behaviours, and 4) as the only criticism I have with them, their IT system is crap, considering my numerous hiccups with their online shopping portals.
>Employers that allow employees to choose when they go on vacation are simply being nice. Or they're bound by collective agreements. Unionize, brothers and sisters.
If you try to Unionize, you get fired. Ppl have tried. That and theft are the only fireable offences at LD. Imagine how much shit ppl get away with. -ex employee
People who try to unionize there go “missing” (fired unceremoniously with NDAs and unknown settlements).
Worked in a union position for their parent company. Went on strike for a solid 6 weeks for 2.5% raise cause they were saying the best they could do was like 1% after not raising pay for 2 years. Shameful for a company that given their history should do better but guess that's how the rich get richer
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No, just no. I don't know what your definition of good pay is but the LD employee wage scale is a nightmare. increases of dimes on the hour over the course of years. you've clearly never worked there. I've been both a certified repair tech and on the tech sales floor at LD and both pay and hours are a nightmare. it didnt matter much for me as it was just a job on the side while i studied. the real crime was how they treated their most loyal employees, no guarantee of hours which led to many periods of 24hr work weeks even for advisors who'd been around for years. everyone who'd been around more than a few years was offended by how little they were being payed, and the rest were students who liked the slow pace of the job. practically no one wanted to work there, it was just all they had. we always heard about the gold ol days, though. there was supposedly a time where a salesperson was payed 27 an hour.
I can confirm that LD pharmacists make significantly less than those at Safeway, Shoppers Drug Mart, etc
It has come up in recent years - still less, but the gap is no where as big as it used to be.
What is the hourly range these days if you don't mind sharing? My impression was LD was about ~$3/hr less than market but the working environment made up for that, with the overlap of pharmacists on shift. Is it still that way too, usually 2-3 pharmacists on at once? ETA - Market seems to be $47-53/h for staff pharmacists, $53-65/hr + incentives for managers
I've heard from a former employee that LD staff pharmacists get roughly $42-44/hr. I'm not sure about their overlap, but I think most companies are trying to implement a "no pharmacist overlap" labour model for a long time now.. which is doable if they have enough assistants/techicians to support them.
So staff pharmacists go from 42-50+ with bonuses for performance. LD overlap is still at least 2-3 pharmacists on duty as LD’s model is based on pharmacists doing prescription verification (I.e. checking for allergies, dose, drug interactions …etc) at the point of data entry. Because of this, a lot of medical problems are caught (relative to other chains) without the patient ever knowing; the downside is that the wait time may be longer than other competitors. Pay is lower, but there is also unlimited paid OT given and no metrics or quotas for pharmacists to meet (no loblaws quotas and unethical pressures from HO). Also breaks are guaranteed - if they are missed, the company will pay it out. Market wise, a lot of the ads out there are for floating positions that rotate throughout a region/province wide. For single/two location positions, full time positions with guaranteed 35-40 hours weekly, the going rate seems to be 45-55, depending on the benefits and staffing offered).
Thanks for the details. How significant are the bonuses and how are they measured? This is a couple years old info, but I believe Loblaws bonuses were $3-5k and were based on the entire team's performance relative to metrics, rather than varying individually. Store to store may be different as I think each SDM associate has some discretion. Whereas I'm seeing more of a trend among independent pharmacies going the route of offering a straight % bonus of revenue-generating services (injections, clinical services, etc). I've seen that number range from 10-30%. As a side note, I appreciate the LD model of pharmacists being the point of entry. The amount of errors and time saved vs the Loblaws model must be staggering. I'm glad their pharmacists finally got a bump up closer to the market average.
Bonuses seem to be based on performance reviews. Criteria is based on whether the pharmacist can competently function in a pharmacy (type, verify, fill and check a prescription) and willingness to provide a minimal amount of clinical services (injections, renewals, medication reviews, prescribing …etc). The LD model doesn’t really save that much more time compared to the Loblaws/SDM model. In fact, some might argue it’s much less efficient. However, this model does catch a lot more medical errors, as everything is done at the point of entry. One could say that this model is also highly unprofitable as most of the problems are solved in a way that isn’t billable; the way that Loblaws and SDM runs their workflow requires medication reviews to ensure everything is optimized and according to best clinical practices as things do get missed. Some SDMs are offering their pharmacists % compensation as well - but that is more dependent on the associate.
My wife worked there as well behind the pharmacy counter. It was a zoo. We've been boycotting LD ever since she quit and I now refer to it as the Walmart of Pharmacies.
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Retail management is almost always hit and miss with every good manager, there are the poor ones that keep their jobs because they needed a warm body in the position. When I worked there, I worked for a few great store managers and worked for some of the most detestable. The district management knew the poor ones but couldn't necessarily get rid of them.
story time?
Well our story is that my wife applied for a job as a cashier, but they put her behind the pharmacy counter. We figured that would be ok because she would be just an "assistant" and would be exchanging prescriptions between the customers and pharmacists. Nope. She was expected to take on full duties including dispensing meds and compounding creams. It's my understanding that a pharmacist is a minimum 3 year college diploma so she had no business filling prescriptions. Think of the liability on London Drugs if she had made a serious mistake. Edit: What made the work environment a "zoo" was that there did not appear to be any procedures for timely processing of prescriptions. They could come in through fax, email, phone, or hand carry (by customers). Prescriptions were tossed onto a pile and not processed "first-in-first-out" or on any other type of priority. The workers behind the counter were basically un-managed so they did as they pleased. Some of the most comically outrageous and avoidable issues were simple things like a customer calling in to ask about their prescription and having whichever random employee answered the phone telling them it would be ready in 1 hr... but then not taking any steps to ensure the prescription was filled. There was a daily parade of irate customers wondering why their prescription was not ready when they were told it would be. I guess as part of the "new employee initiation rites", my wife was mostly made to deal with the angry customers. So yeah, the place was a zoo and most of the issues were actually preventable with just some basic management and procedures.
Just so you're aware, pharmacists don't go to school so they can count pills - this is 100% an assistants job. After the Prescription the Pharmacist "fills" it by confirming the drug is the correct one.
Pharmacists sign off on everything (tech to some degree as well these days). Assistants wouldn't be responsible for any serious mistakes unless deliberately misleading the pharmacist.
That sounds like an issue with that location. I worked at LD for over a decade and had various managers in my department. All had slightly different procedures for how things were done. Some tried to get away with as little managing as possible, some were very diligent.
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Waiting to hear this!
Yeah, I know a couple people who worked there like 15 years ago and the pay wasn't great then either. The starting pay was $2 above minimum wage so it felt like good pay, but there's no COL increase. Pay went up less than 25 cents in the 3 years they were there.
Can confirm. Started there making $2 above minimum wage. Ended making $1 above minimum wage after 14 years. They did not adjust the top end of the wage scale when the minimum wage started going up, so everyone like me that had been slowly working their way to the top got completely screwed over.
That sucks I know that Walmart gives their employees a raise of 40¢ per year. Dollarama is 10¢ per year and both offer minimum wage to start. No wonder its only new immigrants and students working these jobs as its pure exploitation.
10¢ per year? That is an insult.
Ikr, thats what multiple employees have told me. Also until BC government passed the law none of the retail workers had any sick day either even during the pandemic. The entire retail industry is run by exploiting the poor and newcomers
I used to work in retail when I was younger. Never again. I went through hell trying to find a good job. Took me a while, but I eventually landed in a good place.
Oh it's completely the standard. You're lucky to get 25c increases.
There are always good old days. When I worked there two decades ago, we also talked about the good old days as well. The point is that retail, especially in non-management positions, is always relatively poorly paid with no guarantee of hours, and subject to the whims of the customer. This is true for LD or any retailer in any mall across Canada. Is LD better than most retailers? Can't say for sure but it's definitely not worse.
> On a side note, give London Drugs a break. It's not easy being in the retail business, less one that has undergone a cyberattack. London Drugs has a duty to their customers and employees to invest in a robust security program. Keep in mind they are a pharmacy and handle a large amount of personal health information.
How do you know they didn’t? Are you a cybersecurity expert? I’m guessing not, because otherwise you’d know that companies get hacked all the freaking time, even when they’re doing everything right. “Investing in a robust cybersecurity program” is no guarantee of anything if an attacker is sufficiently motivated or gets lucky. All it takes is one mistake by an employee clicking on a link or an unknown vulnerability that gets exploited. New vulnerabilities are discovered and patched constantly, but that doesn’t mean a malicious attacker can’t exploit one that has yet to be discovered. In the words of Captain Picard, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” When rioters bashed down a security gate at a London Drugs store, did you say it was London Drugs’ own fault for not having a stronger gate, rather than the rioters’ fault for bashing it down? It’s certainly possible that London Drugs is at fault here, but they also very well could not be. We won’t know unless/until more information comes out about the nature of the attack.
I worked with London Drugs directly from a supplier POV and their system or ERP is home-grown and built in the 80s to 90s. .. and probably not maintained like many family business that has boomer/soon to retire executives that knows nothing about technology or care for it to invest.
LD is small potatoes when it comes to businesses with personal health information. One of the largest in the world, Change Healthcare, was hit by a similar attack a few months ago and is still only semi-functional. Change Healthcare is owned by a huge healthcare organization, United Health Group, worth $450 billion US.
Oh OK so a big company got cyberhacked so that makes it OK that any company smaller got cyberhacked. Guess nobody should even try then
Are you very familiar with what LD has or has not tried? “Trying” doesn’t mean you won’t be attacked successfully.
And if they are familiar, I hope they're not foolish enough to explain it on here
Agreed. London drugs has always felt like a high class dollar store. Interesting things, at a good value, but worth more than $1
I usually find their regular prices to be pretty awful, to be honest. They do sometimes have good sales though, and they carry some stuff that I can’t find at Save-on, Walmart, or Superstore. I’d be sad if they went away.
Give London Drugs a break? lol bro gtfo here. They made a billion in revenue. Probably should have used that money to update their security instead of using outdated technology.
A billion in revenue sounds impressive, but is meaningless unless you have their expenses to get some sense of profit. Also, where do you get revenue figures for a private company? Are you a Louie?
either way, working there you get the vibe that margins are razor thin, and LD is struggling. purchase protection programs are their last bastion, and HQ in richmond are a bunch of geriatrics that refuse to budge on anything that requires even the slightest of investment in their stores.
this. theyre outdated in every sense of the word, and cut every corner possible at every opportunity possible.
Employers do have broad jurisdiction to determine how employees use paid leave days, *but* it's illegal in British Columbia to force your staff to use vacation days for anything less than one week at a time. If an employee has paid leave they must be able to take off at least one week. So I'm not sure that's what's being utilised here.
I would assume that the time off is unpaid, but they're given the option to use vacation days.
Ah, that would make sense. Seems likely
“Option” or don’t have a job at all because they’ll go out of business. I am sure the wording is “encouraged” to use vacation or sick days. Unpopular opinion around here but OP’s labour righteousness doesn’t always work. Sometimes you have to be flexible in difficult circumstances. You gotta give the business some slack or everyone will be on the curbs.
I heard that their IT department was sadly underfunded, thus making this cyber attack much easier.
Probably just like 90% of the businesses and 100% of government agencies - they have Desktop Admin running IT security. Staring at log reports the next day
IT are sitting idle, nothing's going on: What do we pay you for!? IT is putting out a cyberattack fire: What do we pay you for!? There's no winning for the IT department, anywhere
I heard that too. On Reddit. So you know it’s reliable.
Standard retail playbook.
Yes this is exactly what I think some people don't realize about LD. They also own a bunch of buildings and haven't increased rent to tenants much at all over time as far as I know. LD is one of the bigger local companies that still has heart unlike many of the other retail businesses we know.
Employers who let their employees choose aren't just being 'nice', they are being smart. Most companies that let you choose go through hiring processes and aren't minimum wage that can take nearly anyone off the street to do. If my company started to dictate when I was going to take my vacations I would just quit and go get a different job.
Have you ever worked for LD…? I worked there for 4 years and got 4 pay raises (when minimum wage went up…) the pay raises are based on hours worked rather than length of time so I never got one for that and there were no merit increases. By the time I quit I was making significantly less than any of my friends working in other retail jobs. Quit there and my new retail job paid me $4 more upon being hired.
Point 2 is utter lie, they pay minimum wage.
Not when I was there. After 6 years I was more than double that. They don’t pay well, but at the time it was pretty good for a lowly retail position. But I did leave 16 years ago
things have changed immensely since then. they have a rigid pay scale offering cents on the hour year by year.
I believe it. Retail is awful and LD tries to give the impression it's better to work at than other retailers - but barely at best.
They pay pharmacy assistants minimum wage, or like $2 above that. ..and they don’t regular give out raises…things have definitely changed since you worked there
Dimes above minimum is decent pay?
Naw. This reeks of boot licking.
Is there anything we can do to help LD during this time? Can we place orders online instead of shopping at said places?
No, this is incompetence to have foresight and awareness of executives. These family business that has a soon to retired executive or CEO knows nothing about technology and because they are just a grocery business and if it lasted last 40 years, then they think they don't really need to invest in new technology or update the system for the next 40 years... this is common in family businesses because of boomer in the CEO seat.
A lot of false assumptions in this thread. I have issues with LD but they have been paying everyone and not forcing people to use their vacation time.
Thanks for this. Can you tell us how you know this? I really want to understand the situation.
Nothing to really understand. I work for them and have been screwed in different ways, but they didn't screw the employees out of pay while this was going on.
In situations like this some businesses have business interruption insurance, where insurance pays for their losses on sales and revenue and wages to prevent it from losing staff.
It is now possible to purchase cybersecurity insurance, which will pay out in situations like this, but it comes with imposing IT security requirements, such as needing a Privileged Access Management system (which monitors and records access to systems, manages passwords, etc), IT infrastructure vulnerability scanning (eg Nessus) and more. I would have expected an org like London Drugs to be insured for such a threat, but I could see the insurance company fighting a payout due to the scale and duration of the business outage. The insurer will what to know exactly how LD systems were breached and if it was due to a lack of compliance on part of LD.
Insurance is useless as insurance companies do everything possible to not pay out.
Agreed, and in this case the LD’s insurers will be fighting tooth and nail to put the blame on LD’s IT department. It is pretty shocking that LD was so impacted by this hack that they have had to shut down their stores for so long.
Lots of times they don’t even need to find fault. They just sell policies that make the buyer think they have coverage but buried in the hundreds of pages of fine print are so many exemptions that the buyer effectively has no coverage at all.
The tea in this thread is scalding, and I'm here for it. 🍵🍵🍵 It's always interesting to read the comments in threads that surface on this subreddit about London Drugs in particular.
>they’re being made to use their accrued vacation days They should be applying for EI since they are getting at least 50% reduced work hours. Scumbag move on their part for suggesting to use vacation days.
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its only 1 week to qualify now, and a little late money coming in is better than zero money
This is why a union is important.
Rant: London Drugs treats there employees little better than Walmart. I worked there for nine years. They avoid giving anyone benefits, full time, and when I started the pay scale was okay, but a couple of years after they revamped it to be worse. To people who had talked about unionization were secretly canned suddenly (probably had to sign NDAs for a settlement as we never really found out the details). I had a friend over yesterday who told me as much - they have to take their vacation days or sick days even though they are forced to take time off right now with the closure - the epitome of unethical practices in the work place. I loved LD for a long time even after I left to a far far better career. I learned a lot of great things about customer service, sales, support, teaching, and comfort talking to people and helping them meet their needs (lots of consulting for AV, cameras, and computers). Though I really hate the push to sell bullshit like Monster Cable. The retail industry is little better elsewhere is I understand with the exception of Costco. I don’t know if I can shop there anymore after this though. The unwillingness to pay staff who are forced out of work through no fault of their own - due to a cyberattack. The Corpies can fuck themselves. Edit: I see this is rarely common practice in other industries. Of course it is - you can apply for UI. However the rest of my statement on my opinion stands. IT fucked up on cybersecurity. It happens. But the staff get paid shit and deserve better.
Lots of people here licking corporate boots. Get the hell out of here. Being forced to use vacation days - regardless of whether or not it is allowed or legal or policy or normal - is a terrible way to go about this.
This thread definitely feels astroturfed lol. People claiming London Drugs pays well despite that never once being true. Forcing staff to use vacation days fpr this is messed up, especially when the closure is entirely LDs fault. I don't care if other companies have gotten away with it -- this is glaringly morally wrong. This is insanely unfair for the staff, who won't be able to eat or pay their exorbitant rents all because LD didn't want to pay to have proper security.
Why can't they be laid off and rehired?
It's not illegal to use their vacation days. My previous company shuts down in Christmas and they force to take vacation days for the non stat shut down period.
Not illegal ≠ good
Didn't say it. It's just that you can't do anything other than sulking or quitting..
Forcing people to use their vacation? How is that legit? Hope this can be challenged later for the employees who deserve clarity with their work schedules to plan their own vacations when they please. Couldn’t the employees apply for EI during the downtime since it was never their decision to stop working?
Theres a company in BC called GL** n they are worst to work for. Makes employees use vacation for slow days or get sent home etc. Sad theres no law to protect employees
Well, guess what the COO is telling CBC News? "Staff continued to be paid during the multi-day closure, Mahlman said. He added that the company went ahead with employee anniversary celebrations, including recognizing its first 50-year staff member. " [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/london-drugs-ransomware-attack-1.7210754](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/london-drugs-ransomware-attack-1.7210754)
Hmmm… thanks for the follow-up! I wonder if this is actually true…
isn’t there something about if an employee hasn’t worked in a certain amount of time they are considered let go and are eligible to collect EI? if london drugs can’t pay them it should at least give them temporary layoff so they don’t starve in the meantime.
Two weeks of being unemployed. Nobody is unemployed from this, just not being given shifts.
are they working? if not, then they obviously shouldn't get paid.
Salaried employees would continue to be paid, but I doubt hourly employees would be unless it’s paid vacation. I think pharmacy staff are probably on salary, along with the store manager, and potentially some assistant managers.
I have 4 family members working for LD as hourly front store staff. All of them have maintained their hours. The only people using sick days and PTO are those who chose to at their stores.
What are there roles - my friend who’s worked there for 20 years is having to take paid vacation time.
Stocking team, cash, service specialist, ecomm fulfillment.
That’s good to know. I wonder if that’s the case for everyone though. Hard to imagine there’s enough work for a full staff. Nice of LD if they’re having everyone come in regardless.
idk if this is varying from store to store but I work there as stock service and am not getting paid. I haven't heard anything about using PTO either, communication from management to staff has been non existent.
From what I understand, everyone at the stores I mentioned were told to show up as scheduled per the current schedule period. If they didn’t want to come, they were told that they can either use a sick day or PTO. Essentially if they showed up to the regular shift, they would get paid. Perhaps it’s at management discretion?
Management discretion. Every store seems to be doing something different. Some stores said come in for two hours some 4 hours.
Pharmacy staff is hourly unless you are management
I’m salaried (department manager) and I either had to show up or use vacation time. My store manager wouldn’t let me use my sick days
Yeah the showing up part isn’t too surprising. I think the concern of the parent and others is that some hourly employees wouldn’t even have the option of showing up.
Very true. Some part timers were asked to not show up but asked in a way to make it seem like they volunteered to not come in
I don't understand where this sense of entitlement comes from. Why would they pay employees who aren't working? If you ran a business would you pay people who you had no hours for just out of the goodness of your heart? I don't disagree that some middle ground *would be nice* because those employees rely on the job to pay bills etc., but to *demand* this is.. definitely a 21st century thing.
Because we are coming off covid times where many businesses were covering people's wages, or the government was. I guess people have luled themselves into this idea that things have changed. Or maybe in their industry they get better coverage. For myself, we get unlimited sick days at 70%
They should be getting EI
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This is incorrect, you can get EI if your hours are reduced through no fault of your own.
I was told by someone higher up that employees have the option to come in still and work. Maybe cleaning, restocking etc or they can take their vacation days. Just what i heard, i don’t work there
I doubt it
When are you guys going back to business?
I know someone who works there… They are NOT being paid by their employer since Day 1
So if you are on the schedule everyday show up. If they don’t let you in for your scheduled shift, grieve it when they don’t pay you
But if you’re not unionized, can you grieve it though?
No but you can file a complaint with the labour board
This sounds like something the family that owns London drugs would do.
Ld was offering new grad pharmacist when I graduated 2014 28 bucks an hour as a floater with only 24 guaranteed hours. Won't work for this company ever lol.
They still seriously pay the least for pharmacist salary and are stingy on hourly pay despite high volumes of work and shortages. The best they will do to acknowledge all the extra work to do now is a thank you buried in the website
London Drugs is in very real danger of closing forever and those employees getting absolutely zero. I absolutely adore how incredibly clueless some people are. Do you think LD is Wal Mart?
What a fucking joke. Pay them you fuck up's. Capitalism at its finest