By Chris Isidore and Vanessa Yurkevich | CNN
About 18,000 Teamsters are set to strike 56 Costco stores across six states early Saturday unless an 11th-hour agreement prevents what would be the largest retail strike in US history.
Talks resumed between the two sides Thursday, but there have been no updates on the negotiations. In addition to disagreements on wages and benefits, the union said Costco had rejected proposals dealing with seniority pay, paid family leave, bereavement policies, sick time, and safeguards against surveillance.
RELATED: ‘I’m putting Costco on notice’: 19 GOP attorneys general call on retailer to end DEI programs
Teamsters members at Costco make up 8% of the 219,000 employees at 616 US stores, according to company filings. But a strike by that many workers would be significant for the largely nonunion sector. Labor Department statistics show that less than 5% of retail workers are represented by unions. Most of those unionized retail workers are in the grocery store sector.
The unionized store locations, which have not been identified by either the union or company, are in California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington. Costco said on Friday that even if there is a strike and unionized workers don’t report to work, “all of our locations will be open for business this weekend,” an indication that it intends to use management and nonunion staff to keep stores operating.
Meanwhile, while the Teamsters only represent workers at a small fraction of Costco stores overall, the union is prepared to set up picket lines at an undisclosed number of nonunion Costco stores nationwide, even if workers at those stores remain on the job. Such a move could greatly increase the economic pressure on the company. While there are only 18,000 Teamsters at Costco, the union has more than 1 million US members it can call on for those other picket lines.
History of above-market wages
Related Articles
Letters: Biden’s death penalty commutations guard against irreversible error
San Jose Starbucks baristas stage walkout, joining nationwide strike
Amazon workers strike at multiple facilities as Teamsters seek labor contract
New California law bans bosses from ordering staff to attend anti-union meetings
Amazon workers at 4 California logistic facilities authorize a strike
Costco has a reputation for providing relatively good pay and benefits, especially compared to other retail chains. Its annual company filing states that “our philosophy is not to seek to minimize their wages and benefits. Rather, we believe that achieving our longer-term objectives of reducing employee turnover, increasing productivity and enhancing employee satisfaction requires maintaining compensation levels that are better than the industry average.”
In late 2023, when workers at a Costco store in Roanoke, Virginia, voted to join the Teamsters, the then-outgoing and incoming CEOs of Costco, Craig Jelinek and Ron Vachris, released a letter to employees.
“We’re disappointed in the results in Norfolk,” the letter read. “We’re not disappointed in our employees; we’re disappointed in ourselves as managers and leaders. The fact that a majority of Norfolk employees felt that they wanted or needed a union constitutes a failure on our part.”
“It was a pretty unique letter. I’ve never seen management take that position,” Jane Jacobs, an attorney at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, who typically represents employers in labor relations, told CNN.
The Teamsters have pointed to Costco’s strong financial results as an argument for an improved wage and benefits package. Costco reported record annual net income in the most recent fiscal year of $7.4 billion — up 17% from a year earlier and nearly double what it earned in 2019 ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic. At a recent union rally held outside Costco’s annual meeting, union members held banners reading: “Pro worker? Prove it!” and “Record profits = record contract.”
“Costco has two choices: respect the workers who made them a success or face a national strike,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement earlier this month. “If Costco thinks they can exploit our members while raking in billions, we’ll shut them down.”
Jacobs said that despite the differences at the bargaining table, there doesn’t appear to be a large difference in total cost between their bargaining positions. Costco confirmed a Reuters report that it recently sent a letter out to all employees at nonunion stores announcing it was raising pay by a dollar an hour to $30.20 this year and another dollar an hour each of the next two years. Starting pay would be raised by 50 cents an hour to $20.
Jacobs said a good strategy for any employer is to give the nonunion employees the same pay and benefit package as unionized employees to remove the incentive to join the union. But she said it’s possible the Teamsters go on strike to press their current political advantage.
O’Brien has gotten closer to President Donald Trump than many labor leaders, Jacobs said. He spoke at the Republican National Convention and did not endorse Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
Meanwhile, Costco has refused to back off of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, which have become a focus of Trump’s attacks in the early days of the new term. Jacobs said she could see Trump publicly taking the side of the Teamsters if it goes on strike at Costco to put pressure on the company.
“This union is set up as well as any union to go on strike,” she said. “One thing we know about this administration is they’ll reward their friends and punish their enemies.”
Michael Baker, retail analyst at DA Davidson, said that while a strike at only 8% of Costco stores probably isn’t enough to prove a significant financial hit to the company’s bottom line, a deal that is seen as a win for the union could spur organizing efforts at other stores across the chain.
Katherine Black, a partner in the food, drug and mass market retail segment at management consulting firm Kearney, told CNN that a strike would likely not last more than a week.
“It’s very rare in this sector for a strike to lasts more than a few days,” she said. “The longest I know of was one at Stop & Shop in 2019 that lasted 11 days.”
Last year, the Teamsters staged a five-day strike at Amazon that ended the day after Christmas. But unlike the situation at Costco, Amazon does not recognize the union as representing any of its workers and has refused to negotiate, let alone agree to terms on a contract. Amazon doesn’t even recognize that many of the strikers, who are drivers for third-party delivery services and have exclusive contracts with the online retailer, are its employees.
The-CNN-Wire
& © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
