Costco workers who are Teamster union members have authorized a strike effective February 1 if the world’s third-largest retailer does not meet their demands.
More than 85% of the Costco Teamsters agreed to approve the strike. About 18,000—roughly 8%—of Costco’s 219,000 employees are members of the union.
Costco and the union have been working for months to negotiate a new contract before the current one expires on January 31 but have been unable to reach an agreement thus far. The union claims the company has rejected contract proposals for increased seniority pay, paid family leave, bereavement policies, sick time, and limits on surveillance, ABC News reported.
“Costco recently reported $254 billion in annual revenue and $7.4 billion in net profits — a 135 percent increase since 2018. Yet, despite these record gains, the company refuses to meet the Teamsters’ demands for fair wages and benefits that reflect the company’s enormous success,” Costco Teamsters said in a press release.
Bryan Fields, a Costco worker and union member, noted that the workers are the “backbone of Costco,” driving its success and generating its profits. He added that the workers just want a “piece of the pie,” ABC News reported.
“This strike vote is a direct response to Costco’s greed and blatant disregard for the bargaining process,” Tom Erickson, Director of the Teamsters Warehouse Division, said in the press release. “Costco claims to treat workers better than the competition, but right now, it’s failing to live up to that reputation. Management has less than two weeks to fix this — if they don’t, they’ll face the consequences.”
“No one wants to strike, no one’s excited about doing anything like that, and I’m sure they don’t want us to do that as well,” Fields said of the company, per ABC News. “Let’s bypass all of that and just do what they promise in their code of conduct, which is ‘take care of employees.'”
Thus far, Costco has not made a public statement about the contract negotiations or the potential for a strike by union members.