Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.
when this union “win” raises the price of hotdog
Still think unions are good?
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.
How could this happen?! We’re FAMILY here!
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.
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.
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.
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.