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 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.
Not necessarily, I would agree with you in a lot of cases but there is such a thing as a bad union org.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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…
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.
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!