Costco Workers Vote to Authorize Strike as Contract Expiration Looms

Mei W.

Costco workers voted to authorize a strike and practiced pickets ahead of the final round of negotiations taking place this week over a new contract, less than 2 weeks before the expiration of the current contract. On Sunday (January 19), the Teamsters, representing 18,000 Costco workers across 56 stores and warehouses, announced an 85% vote in favor of a nationwide strike. Last week, workers held rallies and practiced pickets at 4 locations in California, Washington, and New York.

Negotiations between Costco and the Teamsters over a new contract were first suspended last August when the retail monopoly rejected a card check agreement which would allow workers to unionize with 50% of workers signing cards in support of a union, eliminating the necessity of another union election following the signed cards. In December, the Teamsters filed charges against Costco for anti-union activity, including banning union representatives from stores, harassing workers for wearing Teamsters buttons and attire, and changing locks on union bulletin boards, preventing the union from posting flyers. Contract negotiations resumed in mid-December, during which Costco rejected 98% of the Teamster’s proposals, including proposals for higher wages, better retirement benefits, longer bereavement leaves, protocols for extreme weathers, and allowing the union to post on bulletin boards. Costco walked away from the negotiation table on January 8, and the final round of negotiations were set to begin on January 20.

The Teamsters have represented Costco workers since 1993 when Costco acquired Price Club, many of whose warehouses in California remained union following the acquisition. In the early 2000s, Costco workers at locations in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, and Virginia unionized. In October 2022, unionized Costco workers won their current contract—the first national contract between Costco and the Teamsters—after workers voted overwhelmingly to reject the contract that Costco first offered in June, whose wage proposals did not reflect the retail monopoly’s skyrocketing profits from the pandemic, totaling over $5 billion in 2021 alone. The national contract to which Costco and the Teamsters eventually agreed included higher bonuses and a less restrictive attendance policy.

In December 2023, workers at a location in Norfolk, Virginia voted to unionize, becoming Costco workers’ first successful unionization drive in over 2 decades. During the campaign, workers exposed the deteriorating working conditions at Costco’s non-union locations which pushed them to fight for unionization, shaking the retail monopoly’s self-proclaimed title of being a “pro-worker” company. These conditions included understaffing stores, writing up and cutting pays of cashiers who did not meet the unclear hourly quotas for the number of customers they ring up, scheduling hours in physically demanding positions for workers who raised food safety concerns, and getting timed to go to the bathroom. Following Norfolk workers’ successful unionization campaign, the company did not allow them to join the 2022 national contract and subjugated them to a separate contract. Costco conceded only when workers threatened to strike in August. Last April, Costco drivers at a distribution center in Sumner, Washington also voted to unionize, becoming the first Costco distribution center workers to do so.

Image: Costco workers rally in San Diego, CA after the strike authorization vote, IBT media

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