Costco warehouse workers prepare to strike at end of January

Teamsters rally outside Costco headquarters in Washington state. | Teamsters photo

ISSAQUAH, Wash. —Teamsters who are preparing to strike Costco took their case for higher wages which reflect their increased productivity and the warehouser’s increased profits to the company’s annual shareholders meeting on January 24. Costco turned a deaf ear to the rally outside its headquarters in Issaquah, Wash.

Some 18,000 Costco warehouse workers in five states—New York, New Jersey and on the Pacific Coast—will strike after their current contract ends on January 31 unless they reach an acceptable new pact, the Teamsters announced. The strike authorization passed with 85% of the vote on January 22.

Key issues in the bargaining, which has gone nowhere since it began in November, are better wages, paid family leave and sick time and curbs on company surveillance of workers, who are members of nine Teamster locals at the 56 warehouse stores the current contract covers.

That pact, which began in 2022, has first-year base pay of $17.50 hourly for service assistants, $18.50 for service clerks, $19 for meat cutters and $21.50 for truck drivers, with 50-cent yearly raises for all workers and a first-year added premium of $1.50 for the truckers.

Fight flaws in current contract

The current contract caps paid family leave and sick time and rolls them together with state disability benefits and workers comp. It also orders pregnant woman workers to bring in a doctor’s note when seeking pregnancy leave.

“Costco Teamsters deserve an industry-leading contract that reflects the company’s massive profits. If Costco thinks they can exploit our members while raking in billions, we’ll shut them down,” union President Sean O’Brien told the crowd.

“From day one, we’ve told Costco our members won’t work a day past January 31 without a historic, industry-leading agreement. Costco’s greedy executives have less than two weeks to do the right thing. If they refuse, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves when our members go on strike,” O’Brien said previously. Costco is “catering to Wall Street,” not its workers, the union said.

The union did not say how much it seeks for its Costco members, but the firm has the money to pay them. Over the life of the current contract, Costco revenues rose from $222.7 billion to $254 billion. Since 2018, pre-pandemic, profits grew 135%, to $7.4 billion now.

The AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch reported then-CEO Craig Jelinek earned $16,870,623 in compensation in 2023, the last year for which records are available. All but $1.1 million was in stock compensation. Jelinek’s compensation was 336 times the median compensation of a Costco worker.

Pay for current Costco CEO Ron Vachris has yet to be filed with the federal government, whose figures the federation uses for Paywatch.

By contrast, “The pandemic created a super profitable company, more than doubled their profits,” veteran shop steward Chris Reed told Modern Retail “Meanwhile, the wages that were offered [in] the contract immediately at the end or near end of the pandemic didn’t really meet the new reality of inflation and the reality of cost of living,” veteran shop steward Chris Reed told

Preparing to strike, Teamsters had staged practice picket lines in Hayward, Calif., and Sumner, Wash., plus picketing and a rally on Long Island and a large rally in San Diego, all in mid-January, the union reported.

“This strike vote is a direct response to Costco’s greed and blatant disregard for the bargaining process,” said Tom Erickson, the union’s Warehouse Division Director. “Costco claims to treat workers better than the competition, but right now, it’s failing to live up to that reputation.”

Costco’s worker-friendly reputation is in contrast to warehouse competitors such as Amazon, but relations between the workers and bosses have been going downhill since at least August.

That’s when the union sought the right to card-check recognition at non-union warehouses—the large majority of such plants—and received a brusque “no” in reply.

And Costco “expelled union representatives from stores, harassed and intimidated workers for wearing Teamsters buttons, sent employees home and blocked the Teamsters from providing updates on in-store union bulletin boards during negotiations,” Forbes reported.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.