As I wrote in “Read This Post If You Want to Learn the Real Reason for the Bartell Drugs Apocalypse,” Bartell Drugs’ former CEO, Kathi Lentzsch, and chairman, George Bartell, sold the old and family-owned company to Rite Aid for a reported $90 million. The problem with this sale, which George Bartell described as a “fit” that would “best serve the needs of our customers,” is that the buyer basically had no real money. Why? Because Rite Aid never survived the debts its second boss, Martin Grass (the son of its founder, Alex Grass), accumulated during the “high-flying ’90s.”
Lentzsch and Bartell ignored or knew nothing about this fact when they sold one of the region’s most famous businesses to the long-sinking Harrisburg-based corporation in 2020. Two years after the deal was done, Rite Aid began closing “underperforming” Bartell stores all over the city and beyond—last week, a Bartell store in Everett entered the region of the shades. What is not in sight is an end to these closures. Also not in sight is the toll this destruction of value has had on former workers. What this post will present is one such worker. They’ve been employed by Bartell Drugs for more than a decade. They are now living “paycheck to paycheck.” And that’s if there is a paycheck.
This story is very much a Seattle story from the other side, the side that many living on the streets can understand. After devoting more than a decade of their life to Bartell Drugs, their store, of course, closed. And though the employee says the parent company provided the opportunity to continue working, it has not materialized in a meaningful way. It seems the only available work is “packing up merchandise and taking down shelves,” according to this employee, who requested anonymity because she still wants work from Bartells and fears the revelation of their identity could make an already bad situation worse.
A week ago, this employee says they logged into the company’s “workhour system to claim dozens of hours” of Paid Time Off allegedly owed to them, “but [the system was] frozen.” A few days later, they found their account no longer existed. It was deleted. That situation, which can only cause a great amount of anxiety, is still in development. (I wrote to Bartell Drugs spokesperson for comment and will update this post if I hear back.) On top of all this, the employee has health issues that would be catastrophically expensive if they lost their health insurance—by the way, the majority of Americans who have debts to hospitals are insured.
It’s hard to believe this story is singular, an anomaly. If the brutal history of capitalism is anything to go by, then we can easily (indeed, safely) conclude that this employee’s experience is pretty standard. And keep in mind that the average Bartell Drugs salary is, in our city, $48,028. And also keep in mind that the “estimated monthly costs” for a single person in Seattle is $1,708. That cost does not include rent. These estimates are rough, for sure, but no one, including Danny Westneat, doubts that Seattle is a very expensive city.
What’s all of this telling us? That years of hard work are, when accumulated, by no means a sure ticket. We live in a world that says, over and over: play by the rules and you will succeed; your life has nothing to do with the state or class structure of your society; those on our streets have only themselves to blame. It comes down to only you, and the intensity of your determination. We even have a new billionaire telling the hoi polloi that it’s all about “energy and passion.” This nonsense is pumped through the system every day.
In reality, devotion to a company (arriving to work on time, presenting a smile to even the rudest customers, never disappointing the boss’ directives and expectations) often amounts to little or nothing at all. In this system, described as “C.R.E.A.M” by the Wu-Tang Clan, your life can be turned upside-down at the drop of a dime.
And what did this Bartell employee do to go from a barely stable situation in a very expensive city to one where the future is unknown? What did they have to do with Martin Grass? With all of those debts? With Kathi Lentzsch, who, after leaving Bartell, became, according to her LinkedIn account, the board director for Skagit Valley Malt. What happened to the company last year? It went belly-up. What can we guess? Lentzsch will be fine. She will continue doing what she has done for a good part of her life.
Puget Sound Business Journal in 2019, when Lentzsch’s term as Bartells’ CEO had entered twilight:
PBSJ: At this point in your career, what are your professional aspirations?
Lentzsch: I want to continue in roles as a CEO and/or board member with passion brands and next-generation businesses where innovation is encouraged and a positive impact on society is valued.
The future of the employee whose life has been tossed into turmoil by the deal with Rite Aid is not so rosy.
“If the brutal history of capitalism is anything to go by, then we can easily (indeed, safely) conclude that this employee’s experience is pretty standard.”
I’m not sure how we can safely conclude this one person’s IT problems accessing their employee benefit account are widespread. Charles hasn’t found any other examples of Bartell’s employees with similar issues, and elected to publish this screed without obtaining comment from Bartells.
@2: The entire purpose of all Charles’ writings on economics is to demonstrate how the description of economics as the “dismal science” contains an entirely unnecessary noun. 😉
the
dollar bill
can be a Cruel Master:
“You’ll get
Nothing
& LIKE
it.”
Universal basic
income or
bust.
hell
we can’t
even provide
Decent Healthcare
at
least
we gotta
Lotta Billionaires.
Charles takes great job in continually providing examples of where capitalism has failed an individual. What he never does is provide the counter example of how/when a similar situation would have been better under socialism/marxism. Capitalism is not perfect by any stretch but it still has done far more to life people out of poverty and misery than any other economic system. No system can protect workers against bad management unfortunately.
btw Charles has posted several times now about Bartells/CVS and their abandonment of the community for selfish reasons. It would seem like this is a great opportunity to open his own pharmacy business where one of these locations used to be and show them how its done.
Its a wonder to me how you can drop a quarter into these M.B.A. ghouls and the cliches come tumbling out. “Positive impact on society is valued” forsooth.
@4 Mudede isn’t a Marxist – he says it over and over. But if pharmacies were run by the People’s Bureau of Pharmacies, rather than a pack of vacant-eyed vampires, they’d never have got in debt when the board and c-suite looted the company. Whould they have?
@3,
“What he never does is provide the counter example of how/when a similar situation would have been better under socialism/marxism.”
Please google “single payer health care”
@7
BINGO.
see:
Scandinavia
‘Civil’ Wars &
other Fanta Seas.
@4, 5:
do NOT
confuse d13r
with Factual info:
it’ll just go in
one eye and
right on out
the other.
it’s
Sad.
@4 “Capitalism is not perfect by any stretch but it still has done far more to life people out of poverty and misery than any other economic system.”
Actually, capitalism REQUIRES poverty to function. If you only look at the surface and at narrative, then you really don’t understand economics.
@10 and the people are just mice in the house I guess
@6/9 You really need to break away from the Socialist Alternative book clubs a bit more.
@6 – first of all, SPH is an entitlement program, not an economic system. Even then it still has it’s own version of winners/losers, it’s just the government and bureaucrats making the decisions rather than market forces. In the UK many people now have private insurance because the NHS can not provide the standard of care they want/need: (https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/06/business/nhs-strikes-private-healthcare-uk/index.html) In Canada the staffing issues have become a full blown crisis (https://globalnews.ca/news/10224314/canada-healthcare-emergency-room-crisis).
@9 I never said Capitalism was perfect. I said it was better than the alternatives. Here’s a spoiler alert for you, every economic system has poverty and inequality. If you look at capitalism though even those in poverty tend to do better than they would under socialism. The only thing socialism/communism/marxism ensures over time is that everyone is equally miserable. Here’s just one paper for you on the subject (https://www.hoover.org/research/socialism-capitalism-and-income-0) along with a quote
“The general evidence suggests that both across countries and over time within a country, providing more economic freedom improves the incomes of all groups, including the lowest group. As countries liberalize their economic environment, incomes, including those of the lowest decile, grow. “
@8 you should stick with your pro Hamas propaganda
@12,
“In Canada the staffing issues have become a full blown crisis.”
This argument always blows my mind. Like, if there’s not enough staff to treat the individuals seeking care, that’s not a fault of the healthcare model. That’s because there’s simply not enough providers to meet your citizens needs! And it’s a problem that absolutely needs to be addressed, but the conservative/capatilist argument to address the crisis is “Well, let’s just not give citizens access to insurance and/or healthcare and that’ll cut down on demand for services. Problem solved!”
A more humane and egalitarian solution would be to urgently incentivize and train enough people to go into healthcare to meet your societies needs, but I guess simply letting poor, uninsured sick people die off without care is another method that now needs to be considered.
Just wanted to note that a gender-specific pronoun made it into the article in the last sentence of the third paragraph, since it looked as though you were trying to avoid those.
Did anyone read the headline as “How the Demise of Bartell Drugs Is over an Employee” (with the fucking added for emphasis)?
@13 You are not asking the right question. Why aren’t there enough providers? One of the primary reasons is because of the artificial constraints the government has placed on healthcare. People are making choices about how to maximize the return for their labor and in Canada’s case they are deciding a career in healthcare is not worth what Canada will allow them to earn so they are going elsewhere. Now Canada is stuck because if they try to recruit by raising salaries they will also have to raise taxes to pay for them. This isn’t a case of not wanting to give people healthcare, of course people should have healthcare. This is what happens when you put artificial controls on a market. The market adapts and you end up with shortages. It’s no different than the massive grocery shortages Venezuela experienced when the government place price controls on commodities there.