Costco Increases Pay to Over $30 an Hour for Most Store Workers
Costco Wholesale Corp. is raising pay for most of its hourly US workers to more than $30 an hour amid contract talks with unionized employees.
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I have a feeling this is some anti union move, given it's happening during negotiations with the Teamsters. Perhaps it's a smaller increase than what the union members want, meant to weaken their resolve?
Costco is one of the most pro worker employers in the US
Edit: every workplace should still be unionized
Until they're not.
Everything is cool right now for them because they got good management. But at some point, some MBA grad gets elected to lead and drain Costco out of all good will.
Same with Steam.
Yeah I'm scared of what will happen to steam when Gabe retires. I hope he's hand picked a really solid successor
Oh yeah, that's a big one. I hope they're learning some theory so they are able to do the right restructuring. A hand picked leader could work, transferring ownership to Valve's employees and reforming it as a worker co-op along with that would be more resilient.
"If the good thing is bad then it's bad"
Wow so insightful.
If you care about workers rights you should focus on the corporations that are suppressing them instead of making concessions.
This shifting attention onto fucking Costco is lazy propaganda, but i guess it works on you.
There's no attention shift. Costco has been in active negotiation with their unionized employees for a few months now and we've been paying attention to that. Workers are about to strike because Costco hasn't been forthcoming. An alternative way to see this is Costco shifting attention away from the strike and bolstering its image as propaganda that weakens the union's hand. Are you sure you're looking out for workers here and not (inadvertently) Costco's leadership?
Costco is stealing the surplus labor value from every worker in the supply chain.
Check out Mondragon when you have the chance.
Right now... it's "one of the most pro worker employers in the US" right now.
If they have no problem with being such, then they shouldn't mind a few collectively bargained contacts which ensure they stay that way.
Representing 10% of Costco's workforce. The new agreement Costco announced doesn't cover the unionized workers.
And that's the thing, from what I read, they've been difficult during the ongoing negotiations.
Yep. Most companies are being huge fucks about labor relations; bigger than they've been in quite a while. The post-WWII "gentlemen's agreement" between labor and capital (as pathetic as it was) has been completely abandoned. They're back on some gilded age bullshit... sounds likely we're gonna have to do a general strike.
anti union move
Bold move, increasing employee salaries to fight unions!
Not sure if this is sarcasm or not so I'm gonna say it - yes offering higher wages to obsolete a union is literally a strategy to get rid of the union. It's just the least reprehensible strategy. Once the union's gone, the pay increases can get less steep or disappear altogether. If there's nothing for workers to hold over the firm's head and the labor market in their sector isn't tight (it isn't) then the firm sets the wages.
If I've learned anything about corporations over the last few years it's that nothing stops them from seeking profit growth and the long term trend is that anything is fair game, even previously great employee compensation. There might be people in Costco's exec/shareholder layer who are ideologically driven to pay workers well. They aren't going to stay there forever. If you want to glean at how things are likely to change, just look at how most other firms are operated. Chances are the next exec layer would come from there.
That is a weird strategy, assuming people keep having their unions. If I'm in a union, and my salary goes up, I'll obviously stay in the union
Yeah, was gonna say, this is 100% Anti-Union Tactics 101. Literally get warned about this kind of stuff while organizing and there's a history of it dating back to the beginnings of labor organizing.
The trap is laid out thusly: promise unionizing workers a pay rise without a collective bargaining contact. The workers reject unionization because the wages are "fair." A year to two years later, after all talk of unionization has died down and they've had a chance to fire or layoff the organizers, the company will then walk back all wage hikes citing "needed" cost cutting measures and the workers get screwed.
Remember folks, you have a right to collectively bargain and unionize (at least right now; who knows what Trump and this SCOTUS might do over the next four years)... without a legally binding labor contract, every benefit and every red cent of your pay is at the whim of the company (and lobbyist addicted politicians). Companies only have one directive: profit. They'll do anything (including taking a wash on twelve to eighteen months of wage hikes) to ensure profits. Do not ever forget that united we bargain, divided we beg.
He fired the head of the NLRB. Our unions are in great peril. I'm thinking it might be time to buy some red handkerchiefs.
Profit growth, not merely profit. 📈
Does it sound like I'm mad at them? I'm trying to sound like I'm suspicious of them doing the softest union busting corporations can do, which means they're being among the nicest of the bunch. I'm also saying that if people (those who work for them and those who wish to work for them, and those who ask for higher wages by comparing to them) want the nice to continue, they better not get complacent and deunionize. I think learning to recognize anti-union tactics, no matter how nice is essential to keeping good wages long term.
If you read the actual article, there are two things that stand out:
The changes apply to employees at non-union locations.
and
Other benefits for non-union workers include an additional week of vacation after 30 years of employment and vacation for new employees during their first year.
So from my understanding you may very well be correct, instead of trying to block unions through negative reinforcement, they try to block them by rewarding you for not joining one.
