Your local Walgreens might be closed this week. Here's why pharmacy workers are walking off the job.

• Pharmacy staff at dozens of Walgreens locations have walked off the job over workplace conditions.
• The work stoppage follows a similar protest at several CVS stores, and could stretch into Wednesday.
• Walgreens said it's making "significant investments" in wages and hiring bonuses to increase staffing.

Pharmacy staff at dozens of Walgreens locations walked off the job Monday, calling for increased staffing levels and improved safety policies.

The concerted action appears to be organically organized, largely coordinated on Reddit and other social media platforms. On these sites, users described ongoing problems with unrealistic demands from Walgreens management.

"We need more budget, more physical bodies of staffing, and adequate safety regulations for us to serve our customers," one Reddit post said.

Protesting workers include pharmacists, technicians, and support staff.

"The last few years have required an unprecedented effort from our team members, and we share their pride in this work — while recognizing it has been a very challenging time," a Walgreens spokesperson said in a statement to Insider.

The company said it was "engaged and listening" to workers' concerns, committed to providing resources and support, and making "significant investments" in wages and hiring bonuses to increase staffing.

Walgreens has approximately 9,000 locations across the US, and a comprehensive list of affected locations was not available as of Monday morning. Work stoppages are expected to stretch into Tuesday and Wednesday, per media reports.

An unhealthy and unsafe workplace resulting from a lack of staffing and increased demands was an "overriding theme" of the American Pharmacists Association's most recent quarterly survey.

A majority of respondents also said they worked off-the-clock, took extra shifts, and skipped breaks to serve patients and keep their jobs.

"This reporting period continues the theme of pharmacists being coerced to perform illegal acts, to downplay unsafe conditions, to endure abusive, hostile, and threatening behaviors from customers and mangers, and to perform high volume/high risk work with untrained and undertrained co-workers, led by inexperienced managers," the APhA report said.

Pharmacy workers at CVS locations in Kansas City walked off the job in September over similar issues of unsafe and stressful workplace conditions.

"They keep stretching us thinner and thinner," a pharmacist told the Kansas City Star. "I regularly work 10-hour days and don't have time to pee or eat lunch."

The newspaper granted the source anonymity due to a CVS policy that automatically terminates employees who speak to the media.

"When you are expected to work like that, there are going to be mistakes," the pharmacist continued. "At some point, a pharmacist is going to lose their license or get sued or a patient will lose their life because somebody didn't check for allergies or interactions, and it will be because of these policies."

In a blog post last week, APhA CEO Michael Hogue said the industry is "facing an inflection point."

"The exhaustion, worry, and frustration many of you have been feeling is real. For far too long, pharmacists have been asked to fulfill their role in health care without adequate staff support to do so," he wrote. "Corporations and health-systems need to do more, and without delay."

Hogue also said that the APhA supports workers who have decided to "pull back from unsafe work conditions," such as harassment and understaffing.

"I'm not going to ask you for patience; we've all been patient long enough," he said.