Although Costco claims it has a stable “well-served employee base,” more than 18,000 employees disagree. Costco truck drivers voted to strike on January 31.
The Teamsters have been at odds with Costco since last August after the company refused to accept a card verification agreement which would make it easier for non-union Costco workers to join the union – only 8% of its 219,000 US employees are Teamsters members.
With their current contract set to expire on January 31, 2025, the Teamsters and Costco began negotiations in mid-December and came to nothing, leading to the 85% of Costco union members to vote for a strike after the company rejected proposals for increased seniority pay, bereavement policies, paid family leave, sick time and safeguards against surveillance.
Practice strikes have taken place in Long Island, New York; Sumner, Washington; and San Diego, Long Beach and Hayward, California.
A pending strike will affect only about 50 of the company’s 624 U.S. stores, located in five states including New York, New Jersey, Washington and Virginia, with the bulk of the affected stores in California.
Despite the company’s claims that it is pro-union, Teamsters allege that the company expelled union representatives from stores, intimidated and harassed workers for wearing Teamsters buttons, sent employees home and blocked Teamsters from providing updates on union bulletin boards in stores during negotiations.
Since the current Teamsters contract expired in 2022, Costco’s revenue has increased 12%, from $222.7 billion to $249.6 billion, and profits have grown 26%, to $7.4 billion from $5.8 billion.
The Teamsters are calling on Costco to recognize its members’ contributions to the company’s bottom line rather than «pleasing Wall Street shareholders at the expense of workers,» the Teamsters said in a statement.
«This is not the Costco I joined 37 years ago. Something has changed, and not for the better. We can all feel the shift in corporate culture. Management has become disengaged and dismissive, eroding the appreciation and respect we once had. Senior executives have chosen to prioritize corporate shareholders over the very workers who drive this company’s success.»
Christopher Reed, a cashier at a Costco store in Glen Burnie, Maryland, and a member of the Teamsters Union.
Who are the Teamsters?
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada.
It was founded in 1903 by the merger of various local and regional unions.
Today, it encompasses a variety of workers, both professional and blue-collar, from the public and private sectors. In 2015, it comprised approximately 1.3 million workers.
The Teamsters represent 1.4 million men and women working in virtually every occupation throughout the United States and Canada, including many in the construction industry. Two-thirds of Teamster members work in one of five divisions: package, warehousing, freight, public employee, and industrial trades. The public employee sector is the union’s fastest-growing division. Teamster members are also geographically dispersed. The largest concentrations of Teamsters are in the central and eastern regions.
