Ur ticking toward possible Costco -strike on Saturday

New York
Cnn
–

About 18,000 teamsters are ready to strike 56 Costco stores across six states early Saturday, unless an 11-hour deal prevents what would be the biggest retail strike in the US history.

Negotiations resumed between the two sides on Thursday, but there have been no updates on the negotiations. In addition to disagreements about wages and benefits, the union said Costco had rejected proposals employingAt and protective measures against monitoring.

Teamsters members at Costco make up 8% of the 219,000 employees in 616 US stores, according to company archives. But a strike that many workers would be important to the largely nonunion sector. Statistics in the work department show that less than 5% of retail workers are represented by unions. Most of these trade unified retailers are in the grocery sector.

The unenforced store locations that are not identified by neither the Union nor the company are in California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington. Costco said on Friday that even if there is a strike and union workers not reporting to work, “All our locations will be open to business over the weekend,” an indication that it intends to use management and nonunion staff for to keep the stores in operation.

Meanwhile, while Teamsters represent only workers in a small fraction of Costco stores overall, the union is ready to create picket lines for a non -public number of nonunion Costco stores nationwide, even though workers in these stores remain on the job. Such a movement could greatly increase financial pressure on the company. While there are only 18,000 teamsters on Costco, the Union has more than 1 million US members it can call for the other poor lines.

Costco has a reputation for providing relatively good wages and benefits, especially compared to other retail chains. Its annual filing says that “Our philosophy is not to seek to minimize their wages and benefits. Rather, we believe that achieving our long -term goals of reducing employee turnover, increasing productivity and improving employee satisfaction requires maintaining compensation levels that are better than industry average. ”

At the end of 2023, when workers in a Costco store in Roanoke, Virginia, voted to join Teamsters, released the then expenses and incoming CEOs in Costco, Craig Jelinek and Ron Vachris a letter to employees.

“We are disappointed with the results in Norfolk,” read the letter. “We are not disappointed with our employees; We are disappointed with ourselves as leaders and leaders. The fact that a majority of Norfolk staff believed that they wanted or needed a trade union constitutes a failure on our part. ”

“It was a pretty unique letter. I’ve never seen the management take this position, ”Jane Jacobs, a lawyer at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, who typically represents employers in work relationships told CNN.

Teamsters have pointed to Costco’s strong financial results as an argument for an improved pay and distribution package. Costco reported a record annual net income in the last financial year of $ 7.4 billion 17% from the previous year and almost twice what it earned in 2019 ahead of Covid-19 Pandemic. At a recent Union Rally, outside of Costco’s annual meeting, Union members held banners to read: “Pro Worker? Prove that! “And” Record Profits = Record Contract. ”

“Costco has two choices: Respect the workers that made them a success or face a national strike,” Teamsters President Sean O’Bria said in a statement earlier this month. “If Costco thinks they can take advantage of our members while smoking in billions, we’ll shut them down.”

Jacobs said that despite the differences at the negotiating table, it does not seem to be a big difference in the overall costs between their negotiating positions. Costco confirmed a Reuters Report that it recently sent a letter to all nonunion employees announcing that it raised the salary by one dollar per hour to $ 30.20 this year and another dollar per hour each of the Next two years. Starting salary would be erected at 50 cents per hour for $ 20.

Jacobs said that a good strategy for any employer is to give the nonunion employees the same salary and distribution package as trade unions to remove the incentive to join the Union. But she said it is possible that the teamstones are striking to push their current political advantage.

O’Brien has come closer to President Donald Trump than many supervisors, Jacobs said. He spoke on the Republican national convention and did not approve the democratic nominated Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, Costco has refused to settle back from its diversity, justice and inclusion (DEI) efforts, which have become a focus of Trump’s attacks in the early days of the new period. Jacobs said she could see Trump publicly take the side of Teamsters if it goes on strike at Costco to put pressure on the company.

“This trade union is created as well as any union to strike,” she said. “One thing we know about this administration is that they will reward their friends and punish their enemies.”

Michael Baker, retail analyst at DA Davidson, said that although a strike only at the 8% of the Costco stores is probably not enough to prove a significant financial hit for the company’s bottom line, an agreement seen as a victory for the Union could spur organizing Efforts in other stores across the chain.

Katherine Black, a partner in the food, drug and mass market’s retailer at Management Consulting Firmeney, CNN told a strike probably wouldn’t last more than a week.

“It is very rare in this sector for a strike to last more than a few days,” she said. “The longest I know of was one at Stop & Shop in 2019 that lasted for 11 days.”

Last year, Teamsters staged a five-day strike on Amazon that ended the day after Christmas. But unlike the situation at Costco, Amazon does not recognize the union who represents any of its workers and has refused to negotiate, so much less agree on conditions on a contract. Amazon does not even recognize that many of the strikers who are drivers for third -party delivery services and have exclusive contracts with the online retailer are its employees.