That’s nice, but this quote illustrates they still don’t get it.
The fact that a majority of Norfolk employees felt that they wanted or needed a union constitutes a failure on our part.
I’m willing to accept that their lack of understanding doesn’t constitute any malice; that they do want to do best by their employees. But they, along with most companies in the US and worldwide, do not fundamentally understand unions.
There are so many reasons employees should have a union, and many of them don’t have anything to do with the actions of current management. To give them a voice in the company’s public face; to protect them from future management actions; to protect them from the actions of the management that comes next, when the company is sold or the current board retires; to allow them to ask for things the company hasn’t even currently considered; to take a unified political stance; there’s many more.
I don’t want management rending their clothes and sobbing over their failures as managers. I just want them to get the hell out of the way.
The response they quote from Marianne Williamson is spot on. The response from Costco is pure PR. A really different and admirable response would be “we encourage unions so we can better understand our workers’ needs.”
I mean…you said a bunch of pro WORKER things.
The company wishes the workers were happy without ANY additional pro worker things.
Like, it’s not malice, it’s the nature of capitalism. The company wants to pay the absolute minimum for labor. And that goes for coverage, benefits, talking, thinking whatever.
Conversely the employee wants the very most they can get for their labor.
This is the only logical statement a company can make, wrapped in a nice package.
Generally I agree, but in this case Costco is usually pretty good with compensation. When I worked there 12+ years ago they were paying cashiers $20/hr+. Most places won’t even pay $20/hr now.
If Costco thought they could get or retain staff of the quality they want OR maintain a public image they want AND pay less, they would.
Again not malice.
If I could get someone to pay me double for the exact same work, I’d jump in a heartbeat.
Costco minimize, employee maximize.
While i agree on a surface level, i think we should put an emphasis to continue the push to unionize if we are ever to move past this system.
Well yeah, I totally agree, I’m just saying everyone is kinda surprised with the company’s response. Within the current system the options are either “no unions!” Or what Costco said
Well said. Makes me wanna shake em and say “it’s not about you it’s not about you it’s not about you”.
One thing I have always noticed about Costco employees is that they pretty much are always smiling. As best I can tell, it’s one of the best companies you can work for. It’s only going to get better now.
It’s kind of like drivers getting offended when you put on a seatbelt. It takes two people to get into an accident irrespective of how “well” you drive.
I’d say more calculated than remarkable given their long outspoken history with regards to employee relations.
They already have union employees. I didn’t know till this came out a few weeks ago. From what I can tell, Costco doesn’t try to union bust. I’m impressed with their response to the situation
They don’t try to bust unions and they try to offer conditions good enough that the employees don’t feel the need for it, which is extremely rare in North America…
Everyone I know who worked for Costco or works for Costco has loved it. That says a lot about the company.
One of my friends has a STEM degree and said if she had stayed at Costco, she’d make more money and have better benefits than she does now.
No company is perfect but we need more Costcos and fewer Walmarts in the world.
Correct, maintaining their image as a “good company” is extremely important to Costco and their success as a business. They don’t even give out a 3.7% cost of living raise to employees that received “excellent” annual reviews, the max is 3% unless you change positions
While that’s true, it is good to see
aone ‘behave’.
Just a heads up, the NLRB has taken an aggressive stance against companies that refuse to allow their employees to unionize.
So when a company has a positive response to unionization, just keep in mind that they don’t really have any other option but to “grin and bear it” so to speak.
I don’t agree. We’ve seen many times companies close locations outright after they unionize. At times governing bodies like the NLRB will fine them, and they’ll gladly eat those fines and keep them closed.
- The new framework put forth by the NLRB only went into effect in late 2023 (November/December).
- It requires a majority of employees to want to form a union.
- The NLRB intends to force Starbucks to reopen the 23 stores they closed. This news is from last month, so it’s still pretty recent.
I agree that when the penalty is a fine, it’s just the cost of doing business, but it appears that the NLRB are attempting to go another route.
I hope they’re successful. Time will tell. These greedy companies (like Walmart and Starbucks, not Costco) have a lot of money and good legal teams.
If I was reading the NLRB rules change correctly that would be “union busting” activity and would mean they immediately have to recognize and begin bargaining with the union.
Ah yes, as famously evidenced by Elon Musk backtracking on his Tesla unionization opposition
Yeah, plenty of companies have demonstrated a willingness to do things other than grin and bear it
“If you have a problem, talk to your manager” shows they don’t understand unions. In a manager-employee interaction the employee has a worse bargaining position every time. To balance the power of management you need a union.
Yeah also, when you’re in a union you can talk to your manager and have your rep on the side as referee. Also sometimes union reps are there to be the second sane person in a conversation, often that’s because the manager is a lunatic, but other times it’s to translate a screamed string of profanity into actual actionable complaints for the manager.
I think they do understand, and that is the point. They want that power imbalance even while being truthful about wanting to provide a good working environment. I would also suggest that you dont need a union to balance the power of management, rather you need the collective power of the majority, in this time and age we call that a Union but the formality is not required.
the majority can try to hold on but without the protections a formal union affords, they’ll be torn to pieces.
That is situational, I have had more managers that I feel comfortable going to whenever I had a problem then I have had the other way around.
So have I. But I’m in my current job specifically because my last team got taken over by abusive managers. I didn’t feel I could talk to anyone in my new chain of command. It also constituted a bullshit office move. I was gone for a promotion in 3 months.
Even the most benign company, while Capitalist in structure, needs Unionization, across all fields of work. Unions are for protection and advocacy for positive change, and prevent backsliding.
Unions are what HR says it is. They collectively argue on behalf of all employees to protect the employees interests.
Marianne Williamson needs to have a seat. That response was classy because the Costco reps clearly said they were disappointed in themselves as management for dropping the ball, not in the workers who voted to be heard, and invited workers to talk to managers about concerns any time. The alternative reply she suggested didn’t include any such recognition of shortcomings by Costco.
no, it did not but her response pointed out that the PR response did not include any enthusiasm for working with the union, or indicating any support of other Costco employees joining.
Which makes it clear, they still see unions as threats and would prefer to quash them, even if that means treating people with basic decency which they should be doing anyway.
I didn’t get any such impression from the Costco response. I got they were disappointed that one was considered necessary due to their management failure.
“Were sorry we weren’t able to keep things just above the line of so shit that people dont unionize” isn’t exactly a sympathetic position either
Oh for the love of the god I don’t believe in, by every measure this is an exceptional response relative to every other company dealing with unions being formed. Some of you were born to be unhappy.
edit: someone else replied here but I cannot see it. Sorry I apparently blocked you for being annoying or whatever.
That’s not at all the point.
The point couldn’t have gone further over your head if it were a space shuttle
Same could be said for you, keep crying about it.
Its in what they are not saying, not what they are saying that is her point. They could have embraced and encouraged the Union. Dont get me wrong, as long as its not cynical this is a great response but it could be better by actually being pro employee by supporting the union and encouraging it.
I’m sorry they didn’t word it to your exact liking.
Dont be, I was just trying to clarify that im not unhappy with the Costco response, I think its good and I wish more people would look in before blaming their workers. I was just trying to help explian the context for Williamson’s statements. Its possible for both things to be true, where the Costco response was classy, and where Williamson can be critical of what they were not saying.
Ok, it’s good that you’re happy with their response.
I still think Williamson’s response is asinine.
And I see this part of their statement as being supportive of the union
and that their main regret is failure to address needs before one was needed.
edit: as far as I’m concerned, Williamson’s reply is only relevant because she’s up for election and thought being critical would win her points. That’s it.
to quote Williamson’s words:
Classy would have been, "We respect the decision made by Costco workers to form a union, and we look forward to a mutually constructive relationship."You are entitled to your opinion, though I would say that there is some hyperbole to your phrase and word choices and given its directed at a woman it may not be having the effect you intended regardless of how you mean it (I am chronically guilty of this so speaking from I hope experience).
Williamson is only being critical of what they are not saying, and not doing, she is not being critical of what they are saying and are doing. Again both can be true.
Costco clearly highly values taking care of employees. They were masterful in accepting responsibility, though it still has to be proven in their long term actions (which I fully expect it will be).
Williamson is also correct that the response did not go far enough to welcome and encourage the union or more people to join the union. That is the criticism, and as far as I can tell only that.
Costco has a very carefully crafted message by saying “has never been the result of any union” its interesting wording because its designed to get people to react by saying well if a union did not get me the great treatment I already have, then how is this new union going to make things even better.
It subtly delegitimatizes the value of the union while not explicitly attacking it and lets Costco claim a victory when the original conflict was of their own creation and they lost not won. That line pivots from look what a union can do, to you dont need one because we always put you first, ignore that we just owned up to not doing that.
I mean, unions are a threat to a profit-and-valuation-at-all-costs operation. That’s why everyone should be able to have one :)
Also the habitability of the planet. People should consider a union if for no other reason its the most impactful thing they can do to change companies from destroying our planet.
This feels like what Linus Tech Tips said, and we saw how that went…
I dont think that makes them bad, but they do need to educate themselves.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who remembers him saying that kinda shit.
hell yeah
Faith in humanity… restored! :-)
More like Costno.
