On 20 January 2012 it had very recently been actively supporting the BPA, providing many opportunities to recruit pharmacists and to bolster its credibility. We believe that this was part of a strategy to keep the more effective and better resourced PDA union at arm’s length.link
After the PDA Union initiated an application for formal recognition, Boots mounted a large-scale communications exercise, which included meetings and a briefing sent to all employee pharmacists’ home addresses, explaining why Boots is opposed to collective bargaining with the PDA Union and why it has chosen to seek a judicial review of the Central Arbitration Committee decision. If Boots believed that “support for the PDAU recognition is minimal” and that its employees “are generally content with existing methods of engaging and listening to them” (which is what it said to the CAC), then why was it going to such considerable lengths to try and prevent a ballot of Boots employees? Pharmacists may wish to question why the company expended a great deal of time, money and effort in protecting its relationship with the BPA. link