Summary
Costco’s board rejected a shareholder proposal to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, arguing they foster respect, innovation, and cultural alignment with customers and employees.
Shareholders claimed DEI could lead to lawsuits citing “illegal discrimination” against white, Asian, male, or straight employees, referencing legal cases like Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.
Costco countered that its DEI efforts comply with the law and enhance its culture, rejecting claims of legal risk.
The proposal will be voted on at Costco’s January 23 shareholder meeting.
Like great that Costco shut this down, because of decency and what is right but also… good fucking god the bar is so low.
I also forgot to say that a new Costco recently went in in my city, bulldozed yet another black neighborhood. So excuse me while I see some PR covering up some structurally racist hubris. Like i said, the bar is exceedingly low.
If they were going to bulldoze an inner city neighborhood, it’s likely that neighborhood was going to be predominantly black whether they like it or not. The white flight phenomenon predates Costco by a wide margin, and that fuckery already happened decades ago. While there were already inroads to corralling the country’s black population in cities around the turn of the century, the ball really got rolling on that in the post-war period following WW2 with redlining, block busting, widespread segregation prior to the civil rights movement, and the white middle class retreating to the then-new suburbs.
It is in a first ring suburb, a suburb that is very multicultural. The black neighborhood is exactly like my jewish working class neighborhood. The developer used questionable blighting tactics to use TIFs. Racist tale old as time. Every time they think their project is the exception to being racist. Every time they know they are lying to themselves.
You wouldnt think that people who are anti-dei would invest in companies like costco.
Costco has, notoriously, been very “woke”, since before they were even told what woke was or to hate it by fox news.
Costco has, notoriously, been very “woke”
Like seizing the means of $1.50 hotdog production?
“I came to (Sinegal) once and I said, ‘Jim, we can’t sell this hot dog for a buck fifty," Jelineck said, according to 425 Business. “We are losing our rear ends.’ And he said, ‘If you raise (the price of the) effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’ That’s all I really needed.”
I don’t have a dog in this race (I’ve never had a Costco membership), but this quote makes me feel like Costco’s leadership has at least one of their priorities straight.
‘If you raise (the price of the) effing hot dog, I will kill you. Figure it out.’
Be careful you might get banned for promoting violence.
DEI sounds like an incredibly easy and cheap policy to follow if you weren’t already shitheels to begin with.
The worst things about DEI is that it has become politicized. What was once another boring HR policy about being fair at work, is now weapon for idiots it get all upset about.
The thing is, DEI was always going to become political. Evey single conservative is some level of white supremacist.
You cannot hold conservative beliefs and also be a fan of diversity, equity, or inclusion.
The conservative mind sees people as all innately fitting into social hierarchies. And brown people are always at the bottom.
Trying anything that changes that hierarchy is seen as a direct attack on conservativism. Because in a very real way, it is. Which is the fucking point. DEI policies were a subtle attack on white supremacy via capitalism.
The argument was that companies that practiced DEI made more money.
It worked for a time, but the jackasses would rather throw money away than abandon their social hierarchies.
They’re kind of mask off about it all now.
You cannot hold conservative beliefs and also be a fan of diversity, equity, or inclusion.
This is the way it’s been in recent US political culture, where everything has somehow turned into identity politics and social markers. But I don’t believe that applies to conservatism in general. Politics has almost always been driven by economic goals, not identity, and DEI has been implemented because it’s been determined to be good for the bottom line. That it’s useful to rile up the base on id-pol in order to get into power doesn’t change that. The owners still only care about profits, and would hire or fire anyone if it was determined that it’d add to the bottom line.
First the hotdogs, now this. Go Costco management, go.
Don’t forget the $5 rotisserie chicken! And paying their employees a livable wage too!
And paying their employees a livable wage too!
Honestly, that needs to be at the top of the list.
It shows that it is possible for a company to be very profitable without having to shit on its workers.
Sounds like there’s one company that cares more about employees than Nazi investors.
