Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
355 points (84.6% liked)
IWW and syndicalism
712 readers
18 users here now
Community for union related stuff, with focus on the IWW.
Chat room (not mine, belong to a fellow syndicalist):
https://matrix.to/#/#anarchycommunism:matrix.org
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Ha! Agh, how did I miss this link?? 😂
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.
Oooooo above average inflation?! Man, what a time to be alive!
I mean, if you're getting richer and richer as time goes and retire at the point where your purchasing power is at the highest it's even been, then yeah, you're doing pretty good for yourself.
Central Banks aim for 1 to 3% year on year inflation, if you're at 3% year on year wage increase then you're golden, people with a collective agreement don't have that in most cases!
Oh boy!
You plan to bring actual arguments to the table or you're only able to be sarcastic and when it comes to actually developing a point you just prove that you don't know shit about fuck?
I’m not the person you replied to, but I’ll take a stab.
@cmbabul stated in GP that they hand out raises for exceptional work of no more than 3% per year.
So, to recap in a piecemeal fashion, we’re talking about:
You saw this and ran with it. While doing so, you changed the premise to:
On top of that, presumably, because inflation currently exceeds 3% and has well exceeded 3% for almost the last three years, you changed the premise somewhat more into a career’s length timeframe.
The average inflation rate for the last 50 years is 3.8% per year,
Even when looking at a break-even inflation rate for the last 30 years, we’re looking at 2.40%, so we’re talking about a .60% pay increase. No wonder that this doesn’t impress @bunchofnumbers.
Never mind all that, though. I’m more interested in why you decided to change that premise.
I didn't change the premise, we're talking about work so you need to look long term not just over two years. That's 3%/year if you keep the same job from the beginning of your career to the end of it, that means getting 3% even during the years where inflation is under 2%, which people don't take into consideration since it the last few years are fresh in their memory and it makes 3% seem like a bad deal.
As I mentioned a guaranteed 3% would be better than most collective agreements. I've been under 6 of 7 of them with 3 different major employers and most times when inflation was normal our raises were at 2% or even a bit under that.
We haven't taken the seniority pay rate increases into consideration either, only the employees at the max step would be at 3%/year max.
My sarcasm implies the point. Your "arguments" are just stating something is good enough because "positive means more better", while ignoring the complexities of the issue at large. How much is enough? And averaging out inflation over time indefinitely without specifying time intervals is disingenuous. Defining useful time intervals for that which aren't inherently biased to sway the overall argument is in itself a debate to have. This is all without challenging the assumption that the worker's value stays the same or increases very slowly over time, so they must be happy with an effective raise.
Seeing as how you don't care to address the obvious major points that come up in conversations about inflation vs wages in your argument to begin with, and are happy just making hammy assertions, I'm happy to just mock them without putting in too much effort. Why would I let myself fall prey to the bullshit symmetry principle to someone already signaling bad faith with hammy statements?
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..........
Exactly. Why wait until your employer is hostile to try to unionize? It'll just be 10x harder then. If things are good this union will help make sure it stays that way.
It does put it into perspective. Call me cynical or realistic, but something in me saw this as a nice trap for union-considerers. "Just talk about how you feel with your manager" -> at will fired.
I literally thought they were a union job.
Probably promise of higher wages, their other benes are already on point.