this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
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Costco gets a nasty Christmas present and ends the year terribly (workers victory) (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Costco workers in Norfolk have unionised and Costco are seething.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Costco does have that ethos, but it's still essentially a benevolent dictatorship without the power dynamic of a union

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you get 3% every year you're above average inflation over a career's length.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oooooo above average inflation?! Man, what a time to be alive!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh boy!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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:

  • at best 3% in a year, lower is possible
  • for what is deemed exceptional, so by no means guaranteed

You saw this and ran with it. While doing so, you changed the premise to:

  • guaranteed 3%
  • everyone
  • every year

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.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

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.