Severance came with signing your freedom of speech away. That was the agreement in order to receive severance pay. The severance contract was drafted by Walgreens lawyers therefore, it's one sided and unfair. No one should need to sign such agreement just to receive a weeks pay for every year worked if worked more than 3 years with the company.
If Walgreens were to recognize the hard work of the assistant managers, it should have rewarded the severance pay without conditions. Dedicating years of hard physical and mental work that often amounted to stress and discrimination should have been enough to receive severance pay. Walgreens failed to do that. Walgreens also failed to protect those who worked the most and gave the most contribution. But then again what's new?
You agreed not to say, write, post on social media or express anything damaging to Walgreens and that you have not been discriminated in any way. Take the evaluations for example. Evaluations are straight up discrimination because they all depend on store managers input which have the final say especially with those store managers that act like they're helping you but are instead stabbing you in the back. Some store managers do stand up for their assistants but unfortunately some don't. That's why some were transferred into the new role and some weren't.
Also, for some reason such type of discriminatory behavior keeps being rewarded. I am not sure whether it is because the leaders can't see when something is wrong or can't act because either there is no mechanism in place to deal with that or if it is it's not working well. No matter the reason, the bottom line is: It is wrong.
Furthermore, by signing the agreement, you agreed not to compete in the same type of business which even if ti is unlikely to do it is still unfair especially in a free market. These are only some of the things that came with the whole role refresh BS. There is a lot more to it and the way Walgreens is trying to do business.
The main reason for this move was to cut operational costs and most importantly to show that in the books, in front of the shareholders and stockholders. Cutting such costs was not only unfair due to the fact that Walgreens stores never closed during pandemic since they were considered essential businesses therefore probably still did good in sales and were not affected from Covid, but it's also, short lived because the company needs employees to do business so they have to hire again. Therefore they have to increase the operating cost again.
Stay tuned for more Walgreens behind the scenes.