Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.
I’m super pro-union, and strongly support the unionization of the Norfolk workers, but I should acknowledge that this looks like a pretty reasonable response from Costco that’s far cry from the whiny, hostile, threatening responses we’re seeing from the likes of Amazon and Tesla. (absent any other information about the situation).
If you don’t want your employees to unionise, you should give them great conditions, minimising the benefit of unionization, then not sook about it if they unionize anyway - which is exactly what appears to be happening here.
That said, I’m open to being corrected.
I only know marginally more but I think you’re right.
Costco is known for being a good corporate citizen to its members and employees.
Costco at least tries to appear to be the pinnacle of “just” Capitalism, with generous benefits and wages in comparison to the market and intentionally low margins for profit, reinvesting everything else.
This response is 100% expected, though never trust a corpo to be willingly benign. Corpos will always do what’s best for those with the power to influence their direction.
Sure it sounds reasonable because if they took the mask off there would be an epidemic of other stores realizing they need to unionize too. It doesn’t matter how disarming upper management acts because ultimately the role of the capitalist to employees is that of an oppressor. At least with a union you have a VERY limited means of pushing back against that dynamic.
It might seem like a good statement on the surface, but the whole idea of “We don’t think our workers need a union because we’re already willing to listen” is just a blatant lie. A company that truly wants it’s labor to feel heard would want an employee union so that they can communicate and negotiate in an honest, straight forward manner. Telling employees that they shouldn’t need a union is a manipulation tactic.
What I was saying was more along the lines of “Make things so good your employees won’t see a benefit to unionisation” than “We already listen”. One is outcomes focused, the other vaguely ‘effort’ focused, and easy to lie about.
Company-run unions tend to be pointless - at best, acting as a bit of an advisory body that’ll back down the moment push comes to shove.
It’s better, but still childish. “We’re not angry, we’re disappointed”.
If you are really taking care of your employees, you don’t have to worry about a union, and would support your employees to form one.
To be fair, the disappointment is directed at themselves, not the employees. If they’d said they were disappointed in the employees for unionising then I would agree with you, but this to me at least reads like “we haven’t been doing enough and need to do better”.
I thought the same. I applaud them for recognizing their need for change.
I don’t know, man. The wording of that still paints the act of having a union as a bad thing.
You wouldn’t say, “I’m disappointed that my son only has a 3.9 GPA, but actually I’m disappointed in myself for letting that happen” If it’s not truly a bad thing, no one needs to be disappointed at all. Unions are good for everyone, except literally the people at the very top who might only make 7 digits instead of 8.
The framing matters, and this is still worded like a backhanded framing of “unions bad” from corporate like they’re saying “Yeah, the dog shit in the bed but we should be responsible as owners”
That coupled with the cookie cutter anti-union advice to just talk to your manager if you’re unhappy (so they can unfailingly steer you away from a union) makes this whole thing just sound like an HR guy framed it to be as inoffensive as possible while still painting the union itself as bad.
I’d say that it paints requiring a union as a bad thing. In a perfect world, with both workers and management valuing each other appropriately, a union shouldn’t be necessary because there is established trust and respect. I think a completely appropriate response is “We thought we had that trust, but if we created a situation where our employees felt they needed a union, then obviously we didn’t earn that trust. We should have done better.”
That’s why I love the letter. It’s we failed since you felt the need to do this. I can’t find where Costco has tried to bust unions like Starbucks or other companies. I have found cares where they suspended suppliers who were trying to union bust. All and all they seem to be an ethical company.
In a perfect world, everything is fair and power imbalances don’t exist. In a perfect world capitalism may not exist. In a perfect world is not a good tool for analysis, here, and doesn’t excuse the tone-deaf response from Costco.
In our actual world, where virtually every other corporation is what it is, why would Costco think they are completely immune from the distrust that sows? Why would Costco think this doesn’t come off as manipulative? Why didn’t they emphasize “we apologize and we will do better”?
No, I think the under-handed tone of doom and gloom was very deliberate. I think they want the effect it had: reinforcing their stance that unions are bad, to let the employees know that they should still fear retribution of some vague type, if only to slow down employees at other stores following suit, while they devise a strategy to deal with it.
Not necessarily, I would agree with you in a lot of cases but there is such a thing as a bad union org.
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This doesn’t read like seething to me.
Like, it’s great that people are unionizing, because even if there’s the best possible relationship between businesses and labor, the union still makes that relationship more equitable.
But that doesn’t mean that the creation of the union has to be viewed as hostility between labor and business.I’ll be interested to see if their good reputation holds up to pressure,but as of right now I haven’t heard anything that makes me want disbelieve their statement.
But that doesn’t mean that the creation of the union has to be viewed as hostility between labor and business.
Of course it does. The IWW isn’t a yellow union. It understands that this is a class war, not a class “collaboration.” The capitalists certainly think it’s a class war.
My question would be “what’s the win condition”?
A business that tangibly treats labor better is better than one that does not.
A union lessens the power imbalance, but it’s still better to start from a place where cooperation is possible.So if the relationship must be hostile, what’s the win condition?
The win condition is the workers owning the means of production. In the meantime, it’s a struggle to take as much of our labor’s value from our employers as possible, because we’re entitled to all of it.
Sure, and that’s great. I’m in favor of that. But how does viewing cooperation as collaboration in a class war further those objectives?
“Fuck you for trying to be better” isn’t a viable strategy for the midterm goal of “more fairness”.
If you’re in favor with what I’ve said, then we’re probably not in much disagreement. We’re probably misunderstanding each other on a point not worth quibbling over.
It’s the viewing it as intrinsically hostile, and the (seeming) delight at the perception of “hurt” to the business almost over the benefits it brings to labor.
I don’t view organization as an intrinsically hostile act. It can be defensive or hostile depending on the business, and often is, but it needn’t be if the business doesn’t make it so.
Even in a situation with collective ownership, you still have a voluntary organization of that collective.
That organization isn’t hostile.This is a corporation we are talking about, and that sort of organization is intrinsically hostile to labor.
The capitalist-wage slave relationship structurally is an antagonistic one. A worker cooperative isn’t structurally antagonistic, nor is a democratic socialist state. Whether a form of organizing is hostile depends on the structure/power dynamics of its relationships.
Why would an employer ever employ someone if there is no net gain to the employer? You are not entitled to all the value of your labor unless you are self employed and that sounds like a lot more difficult than showing up to work for 40 hours of work that’s been organized by someone else.
You are only entitled to all the value of your labor
That’s exactly the problem: workers are not getting the value of their labor.
It doesn’t sound like you’re a syndicalist, it sounds like you’re either a capitalist or a worker with Stockholm Syndrome.
I am both a unionist and a capitalist. I have spent 10 years of my career as an involved IBEW member; going to unit meetings, voting, and salting companies. I have spent the last three years as a business owner. I like to think of myself as an ethical capitalist. My employees get paid union wages, which is higher than most companies in my area. The only reason I haven’t unionized my company yet is because it doesn’t fiscally work as a small, young company. The burden of the cost of labor would destroy my company. I would not be able to compete in any tangible way with my competitors. To give you an idea: the burden per hour of a journeyman electricians union renumeration package is close to $70/hr. In order to support that burden as well as other overhead: building, vans, tools, insurance, bonds, software, phones, office supplies, I would have to bill well over $120/hr. Now the question is: as a business owner, why would I be taking any risk in employing someone if there is no net gain for all the work done in the background as well as getting stiffed on invoices? The other question is: is everyone cut out to be their own employer? What about the people that only have the ability to show up to work and not organize new clients and new work, what do they do? I’m all for living wages, good working conditions, fair treatment, and and and, but what’s the benefit to me as an employer for providing these things to an employee?
I’ve also been on both sides of the line, having been an employee, but also having started a couple of tech startups using my own capital and having dipped my toe in angel investing. I even used to be a landlord (I got better).
The questions you’re asking are basically, how can capitalism function if the workers take all the profits? And the answer is that it obviously can’t.
We don’t want capitalism to function, we want to end it. We want to abolish private ownership of the means of production. We’re socialists.
Lemmy.ml coming through with that Marxism soapbox again
Guess what, you’re on lemmy.ml, and this is a syndicalism comm.
They shot at people trying to unionize, and if it wasn’t for Marxism they would have succeeded. Show a little respect for the people who literally risked death to ensure we wouldn’t all be enslaved in company towns.
Nobody remembers why they have the weekend or the forty hour work week, because we’ve been memory-holed thanks to two red scares and a cold war 😔
This is the IWW community, it’s a syndicalist union
This is the IWW community
Let me stop you there. Because that’s all this is, a community - within a decentralized social network. And that’s awesome. But don’t marginalize the IWW by pointing to this comm like it perfectly represents the IWW’s ideology.
I honestly think that many of the Marxists and Communists I meet in the ActivityPub universe are some really great folks, but you bunch are way to serious.
Hell, labor and business is already a hostile relationship even without a union, which is why unions exist. Any boss that doesn’t act as if it’s class war is a chump who won’t be able to get funding from traditional institutions (banks, shareholders, etc).
Do these downvoters work for the Pinkertons? 😂
People really defending a corporation like it’s their friend or something.
I feel Ike most people don’t realize how Costco workers are treated which is important context for this letter. Costco literally looks like a union job on its surface, good pay, full benefits, good time off accrual rates. Like yeah i understand what the letter is saying. They already treat their workers as good as most unions are able to negotiate, I’d feel a little upset about it too if i was in that leadership. Not because they joined a union but because they felt like they needed to. Would make me wonder if there were poor conditions i wasn’t aware of.
They couldn’t have worded this letter any better. It puts the responsibility on them (leadership) it says they did not think it was necessary but obviously they have some blind spots. It acknowledges the value of unions, and in no way demonizes them or the employees.
Welcome to Costco we love you.
-Honestly that’s the most direct corporate statement I’ve seen so far, it feels real.
Ha! Agh, how did I miss this link?? 😂
Costco does have that ethos, but it’s still essentially a benevolent dictatorship without the power dynamic of a union
It’s also a bit of a farce, Costco hide behind their ethos while handing out no more than 3% raises a year and that’s for exceptional work. They just paid out a dividend to shareholders too
If you get 3% every year you’re above average inflation over a career’s length.
Oooooo above average inflation?! Man, what a time to be alive!
I mean, if you’re getting richer and richer as time goes and retire at the point where your purchasing power is at the highest it’s even been, then yeah, you’re doing pretty good for yourself.
Central Banks aim for 1 to 3% year on year inflation, if you’re at 3% year on year wage increase then you’re golden, people with a collective agreement don’t have that in most cases!
Oh boy!
You plan to bring actual arguments to the table or you’re only able to be sarcastic and when it comes to actually developing a point you just prove that you don’t know shit about fuck?
Nah, this time is exactly the right time to unionize. This way the company does not have to fight the Union and they can cooperate properly.
However, if under new management the company where to ever change her tune…
Exactly. Why wait until your employer is hostile to try to unionize? It’ll just be 10x harder then. If things are good this union will help make sure it stays that way.
It does put it into perspective. Call me cynical or realistic, but something in me saw this as a nice trap for union-considerers. “Just talk about how you feel with your manager” -> at will fired.
I literally thought they were a union job.
Probably promise of higher wages, their other benes are already on point.
I think this is a classy response. I’d love to see more about the fight if one took place .
It definitely is, but taking their statement at face value, I still don’t think they should feel bad. The only way to find out what your employees want and need is for them to unionize. Unless labor is organized on its own terms, labor cannot really express itself to corporate leadership. And not everything workers want or need is selfish; believe it or not, most workers are proud of the work they do, and want the company to thrive for everyone - ownership, management, labor, customers, environment. Ownership only thinks of ownership, management only exists to enforce ownership dictates. A fuller picture which includes the rest will result in a strong and stable business that has a long, long future.
Unions are good for everyone.
Me too, seems like there is more to this story.
Echoing others, Costco is a solid employer and I actually believe their sentiment.
HOWEVER
The difference between union and non-union is the difference between asking your employer pretty please to treat you well and telling your employer how you will accept being treated.
Even if the union yields no improvements whatsoever for the workers, it’s worth it just to have that express and clear leveling of the playing field.
Hey, serious question here, I own a small business with 8 employees. All profits for the business go back to employee bonuses / incentives. I pay myself $1/year and $0 in profit distributions. We cover medical benefits.
It seems like the sentiment amongst Lemmy is to unionize the employees, which I’m fine with, but am I allowed to pay their union dues?
My only qualm is it means less profit sharing for them, but if it improves morale to have that representation, I’m all for it. Ultimately, it is what they want.
I’m union dumb. I want to do right by the employees. But I also don’t want to get screwed to their detriment (e.g. Personnel Concepts, fuck that company).
In before anyone asks, I work contract gigs in a completely separate industry to pay my own bills. I own this business to create jobs and be part of the community.
There will always be an underlying adversarial relationship between employers and employees in a traditional capitalist framework.
Unions help even the playing field and are very important, but if you truly are interested in supporting the rights of your workers as much as possible, you must accept the fact that they cannot remain “your” workers.
What does that mean for you and your business? You should talk to your employees and the relevant orgs in your state/city about beginning the transition into a worker-owned co-op.
Depending on the business structure, state and local laws, and the industry you serve, the pathway to that is complicated. Look up worker cooperatives in your state and find organizations that specialize in helping businesses navigate that transition. There are legal, monetary, ethical, logistical, and emotional concerns that are all critical to address and understand, but it can be done. Businesses far larger than yours have successfully made the transition.
That would be my advice. But aside from that ultimate goal, unionize your workplace and place as much power in the hands of your employees as possible. Let them decide how they want to structure pay, dues, etc, that’s the whole point of worker empowerment.
Hey, thanks! Hadn’t heard of the worker coop idea, will look into it.
Will also continue to look at unionizing the workplace. I think we’d be the first in our industry in our area, so it could at the very least pave new ground.
I think it gets murky quickly if you pay their dues as the employer- if you’re funding the union there’s a pretty clear conflict of interest. To me the clearest way to address this would be to offer a stipend without earmarking it so they can fund the union (or not) at their own discretion.
Another option would be to just formalize it as an ESOP, thereby erasing the distinction between employee and employer and effectively obviating the need for a union in the first place.
Good idea on the ESOP! Will talk to my accountant about this.
Idk how you read that letter and interpret it as “seething”. I read nothing of the sort.
When something challenges some people’s world views, the only response they can muster is to imagine whoever is involved must be lying through their teeth.
I understand where the Costco management is coming from, since I’ve heard they do, in fact, strive in putting their employees with great pay and benefits. But they got to realize that employees need to unionize so that their good pay and benefits continue in the future. There are no guarantees that Costco will continue to do so unless they have unions.
The best any Capitalist firm can offer to its employees is a “benevolent” dictatorship. Unions provide an actual change to the underlying power dynamic, which is why capitalist firms oppose them so much.
Super happy for the workers in Norfolk, let’s keep this kind of collective action rolling forward!
Based on what I’ve heard about Costco, they’re literally the only company that I could read this letter and think “yeah, they’re probably genuine about their sentiment”.
Unionizing is ALWAYS a good idea, just in case, but as far as companies go, Costco has always gone out of its way to make sure their people are taken care of.
https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/the-costco-model
The above is a study from the University of Texas. The conclusion seems to be that yes…it’s still retail, with all the usual crap that comes with it, but the company actually tries to mitigate it as much as possible.
For real. The kicker for me is that I recognize almost every worker at my local Costco. They aren’t just new faces every week. I worked retail for years and I’ve never seen a retail place retain so many people for so long.
I’m a retail manager and I would love to be a manager for Costco.
Half my stress comes from trying to fight head office on behalf of my staff while being the guy that gets yelled at by both sides.
Managers aren’t all on the companies side. We’re just stuck in the middle.
When I was a low-level retail manager my perspective was that my staff was there to take care of the customers, my bosses were there to take care of the store, and my job was to take care of my staff.
I’ve been going to the same Costco for 8 years. And I’ve been saying hi to Jim for 8 years.
Costco has a reputation for treating workers well and compensating fairly, union or not.
That said, it’s still great news for those workers as they have greater assurance and say on their working conditions and no longer need to rely on the goodwill of Costco’s management because who knows if or when financial headwinds will change their practices.
Yeah, some of the upper echelon even got chewed out and threatened to never raise the price of a hot dog. While I see them as a company that treats their employees well, and customers fairly, I do see the C-suite and their teams generally as capable of changing all that to squeeze out more money.
That said, time will tell; if they don’t pull a starbucks and start closing down businesses, then they aren’t anti-union. Then again, unlike Starbucks, Costco typically buys the land and builds massive warehouses… that cant normally be said for Starbucks’s investment in their stores; they typically rent in a shopping center.
Costco has a reputation for treating workers well and compensating fairly, union or not.
Only because Price Club was already unionized and CostCo didn’t want it spreading to other stores when they merged in the 90s.
It’s always been the threat of unionization keeping CostCo a decent job.
Unionization has always been a boon to all workers, in and outside the union.
People credulously taking corporate speak at face value. You have to understand that this letter was crafted by a committee that included whichever anti-union consulting firms they have on retainer. The persona that a corporation projects is created and maintained by its public relations machine. It’s Edward Bernays-level propaganda to manipulate their employees, their customers, the government, and the public.
I’m quite surprised because it’s been one of the things the company has been proud of for a long time, offering conditions so good that people didn’t feel the need to unionize as they felt they were treated fairly… As someone else said it really just looks like an honest answer…
I used to work at Costco, although only for a summer.
Every time I shared my experience working at Costco to friends and family, they were quick to jump to Costco’s defense, as if I was insulting a dead relative. Countless times, if not every single time, I heard “it’s probably only the Costco you worked at”.
For comparison, I also worked at Walmart, and my experience there was neutral, but I’ve had some people try to dig for bad experiences. There were some bad experiences, but at the end of the day, when I clocked out, I was done working (unlike Costco).
Don’t put too much trust into these corporations.
at the end of the day, when I clocked out, I was done working (unlike Costco).
Could you expand on this a little, please? Were they expecting you to work off the clock, were they calling you at home for some reason, were they expecting you to keep open availability?
I think experiences like yours really is what is covered in Costco management’s disappointment in this letter.
The Teamsters got an excellent national agreement raising wage standards across the organization, and makes it seem Costco hasn’t kept up. On the other hand, the odd pressure tactic, bit of favoritism, or dirty trick store managers pull get people motivated to join unions as well.
Consumers lacking class consciousness, siding with their favorite brands over workers. smdh.
Yeah, even the most worker friendly business can have blind spots. Hell, if Unions themselves can have blind spots, then anything with a motive of profit is going to have FAR more, no matter what they do or say
Always be pro union, always trust the workers that a business is abusive, never trust the business
You can support unions across the board and still be able to commend Costco on the good it does for its employees.
Anyone who shits wholesale on the company (pun intended) is missing the point.
Respectfully, I think that’s where the downvotes are coming from.
More downvotes. Am I the only one here actually holding a Red Card?
A lot of the downvotes are probably coming from lemmy world and sh.itholefor.nazis, two instances that are really bad for downvoting anything left of hitler. Fun fact: if you get banned from those instances your post stop showing up for their users so can’t downvote you.
In truth I have a high tolerance for fake internet demerits. If I get no downvotes at all it’s a sign of tailism.
As others in this thread have stated, Costco is probably the only big company whose word I’d trust on this letter. Never heard anything bad about them and I genuinely believe their continued success is hedged entirely on their relationship with customers and employees.
But the “if you don’t feel like we care enough, talk to a manager” always sounds bad because if lower management is the issue then that’s a non-answer. Would be better to have a “reach out anonymously at this inbox” or something, otherwise they may as well tell it to the union rep.
Yeah, Costco has always been hated by Wall Street for how well it treats its workers, and how well they’re compensated. They’re always dinged for being able to send more profits to shareholders than they do, because they treat their workers too well.
They are pretty much the only large company that would send a letter like this that I would believe. Good for Norfolk, but no one should lump Costco in with, say, Walmart, as far as big box retailers go. They really do cleave to a higher ethical standard.
