PROVIDENCE — A handful of protesters picketed Thursday outside a CVS drugstore on Broad Street, part of a nine-state effort by a union-backed coalition intent on calling attention to “disturbing” practices by the nation’s largest drugstore chain.

Change to Win, a federation of seven unions representing 6 million workers, has hectored the Woonsocket-based drugstore chain since 2007, when the company merged with Caremark Rx Inc., a Tennessee-based pharmacy-benefits manager. The combination created CVS Caremark Corp., (CVS:NYSE) the nation’s 19th-largest publicly traded corporation.

Among the coalition’s complaints about the company are that it: operates more stores in predominantly white, middle-income, communities than in predominately black and Latino, lower-income, communities; keeps stores open more hours in white communities; is more likely to operate in-store clinics in white communities; and uses fewer anti-theft devices and systems in stores in those communities than in stores in predominantly minority communities.

The coalition also complained of persistent sales of out-of-date merchandise, mislabeled prices, overcharged customers and pharmacists who make too many mistakes.

“CVS already knows about these problems,” said Deanne Dworski-Riggs, a spokeswoman for the “Cure CVS” campaign being run by Change to Win. “You’d think, by now, CVS would have done something” about them.

She joined about a dozen other people chanting and marching Thursday in front of the CVS store.

The protesters carried placards on which was printed a red-and-white pill capsule on which “Cure CVS” was printed. They also carried a 48-page, footnoted booklet, citing the results of two CVS store surveys conducted by the organization, as well as news reports of government actions against the chain.

In an e-mail to The Journal, CVS spokeswoman Carolyn Castel said company policy requires that items be removed from the shelves before they reach expiration.

“While no process this labor-intensive is immune from error — a typical CVS/pharmacy has more than 100,000 items on its shelves — we strive to achieve 100 percent compliance.”

Castel characterized the attacks as “misleading” and motivated by the company’s refusal to do away with secret ballots in union organizing elections.

pgrimald@projo.com