Summary
Costco shareholders voted overwhelmingly (98%) against a proposal by a conservative think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research, to assess risks linked to the company’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Costco’s board supported DEI initiatives, dismissing the proposal as partisan and unnecessary.
This rejection contrasts with trends in other companies scaling back DEI efforts.
The vote comes amid new federal rules from Trump targeting DEI initiatives in federal agencies, potentially impacting private vendors working with the government.
DEI is also just called “teambuilding”. All successful companies do it in some form
I don’t understand the hate on DEI initiates. DEI is just make sure you hire a diverse work group. So if these dei employees are bad, that’s 100% on the company for hiring them. Nobody made them hire that specific person and 99/100 times employees are bad because no one trains them.
I don’t understand the hate on DEI initiates.
It’s hate, that’s all.
It’s because some people only want to believe in straight white people.
Today my CEO at a large corpo org stood in front of a packed room of minority employees and assured us that the company would continue DEI policies regardless of the government and essentially said “fuck Trump” in the most politically correct way possible. It feels good that my workplace is such a safe space. I think we’re about to find out what companies actually give a shit versus those using optics to prey on the LGBTQ community, disabled people, and racial minorities.
“fuck Trump” is pretty politically correct.
I also work for a large corpo org here, but instead of “DEI” we have “Belonging.” Under that label we have a council that informs and recommends things to our senior leadership, groups which offer support and community (LGBTQ+, Latinx, women, etc.), and provides learning resources. Overall I’m proud of the work we do. (I’m also proud of the two of people I’ve hired internally who were chairs in Belonging groups at some point!)
A couple months ago at a large event, someone asked if we’d be getting rid of DEI. Our Chief People Officer was able to say something to the effect of, “We’ve never had a DEI program but we are committed to continuing our Belonging practices.”
So basically we’re not backtracking on anything, and we have pretty good DEI, but because we never used the term “DEI” she was able to deflect the challenge to it. I never thought about it before that happened, but it made me wonder if it was an intentional choice to avoid the buzzword and so some of the criticism that comes of it.
Anyway, cheers to you also having a safe place of work!
Only 2% of Coscosians are racist…Coscosians are Costco Shareholders.
I wonder if Costco stock is a good buy right now. Currently $937 up from $300 in 2020. A P/E of 55, with 0.5% annual dividends paid quarterly.
With the new risk of being targeted by MAGAs for a boycott, I could see that being a problem. I don’t think Costco’s survival as a corporation depends on its stock. They do stock buybacks, which is going to be artificially inflating the price a bit.
If it drops significantly, I could see it being worth the pickup. Maybe I’ll sell some long put options.
US stocks are incredibly expensive right now based on their earnings. If Trump messes up just slightly on the economy, the market will take a huge hit. To prop up the market and thereby his own ego, he’s going to try to force Powell to lower interest rates even if it’s not supported by the numbers.
He may or may not be successful. Good luck.
To prop up the market and thereby his own ego, he’s going to try to force Powell to lower interest rates even if it’s not supported by the numbers.
Ah, just like in 2019, which is why they were already at damn near 0% and had nowhere to go when the pandemic started.
(Just in case people need a reminder of where all that “covid” inflation really came from.)
Fuck Costco and DEI bullshit.
I worked there and the women and minorities got preferential treatment the whole time. Any heavy lifting? Grab one of the guys who are already sweating their asses off outside the 100+ degrees heat. Pay no attention to the fact that the job requires that you be able to lift 50 pounds or however heavy that case of water is during the job interview. Literally had the lot lead look right past two female coworkers in front of him and point to me to help move 100 chairs and tables for some jackasses return.
Someone made a disgusting mess or broke something? Grab the closest male employee to clean it up. Can’t have any of the women getting dirty.
I lost count of how many times a guy was outside clearly struggling with heat exhaustion and he was asking to come back inside but nah. They need him outside. Can’t have any one of the 37 minority women that have been folding clothing since the dawn of time inside the air conditioned box swap places even though they are both technically working the same exact job title.
I was so happy to quit that fuckin job. Easily the worst management I ever worked for and I worked target nightshift in the ghetto as my first job. At least those assholes were pricks to all of us on night crew equally.
Wow that’s funny because my sample size experience tells me the exact opposite of your experience. So my experience is also representative of the entire corporation
Your store must have been a nice store. I’m happy for you. My store was not. And yes I blame the higher ups because our GM was all buddy buddy with the new CEO and the top level people at the corporate office.
Meaning any complaints against our GM went absolutely nowhere. HR wouldn’t do anything. The boss of our boss wouldn’t do anything because technically even though he was only the GM of a store he was friends with too many at the top so he sorta had immunity from the district manager as well.
I never claimed my store was representative of all the individual stores. I did say it was a problem with my store and the top level management at Costco. Not the same claim.
No you clearly blamed dei and women and minorities.
I said “Fuck Costco and DEI bullshit”. Please point to where I blamed women or minorities for either of those things.
Sounds like your boss was the problem, not the DEI hires. But that’s okay, the racist conclusion is the most sensible one to jump to.
Yeah… No. It’s a Costco problem. Our stores general manager is best buddies with all the Costco higher up and most importantly the new CEO. So any attempt to report him or the other managers for the multiple things they were doing wrong would just end up with you getting less and less hours until you eventually quit on your own. I attempted to go over my bosses head and contact the regional manager and guess what. My hours were cut and I got a write up for something that I never did the very next week.
Again, sounds like the problem is the bosses and not the minorities who are just employees like you.
Is it really just my bosses when those minority or female employees repeatedly took advantage of the biases of those bosses once they realized how that power structure worked?
Every time we got a new hire and we saw them outside or doing shitty jobs like us we thought maybe they weren’t going to be the same but as soon as they realized they could suck up to the bosses and get outta shit constantly they would almost always take advantage of the preferential treatment. The few minority and female employees that also called them out for their shit also had their hours cut and had to leave for something else or transfer stores.
If you’re out there Ramona you were a real one homie.
Is it really just my bosses when those minority or female employees repeatedly took advantage of the biases of those bosses once they realized how that power structure worked?
Sounds like you’re not blaming your bosses, and are blaming the minority and female employees.
Blaming them for taking advantage of an imbalanced system for their own gain. Not blaming them for their race or gender. Come on now.
You’re blaming women and minorities for taking advantage of an inbalanced system but it has nothing to do with their gender or race? I agree, I blame the bosses.
they realized they could suck up to the bosses and get outta shit constantly they would almost always take advantage of the preferential treatment.
Sounds like your bosses, yeah. They couldn’t do that if not for your bosses. They’re probably paid less too, making them more valuable to the company than an expensive white boy.
There it is lol.
Took you awhile to admit you’re just racist but I’m glad you got around to it.
Also no despite me being comically over qualified for that position I was paid less than the majority of the minority and female employees there.
You’re doing everything, including calling me a racist and telling me your bosses pay you less, to not blame your bosses. Do you understand how dense that looks?
What fucking risks you fucks? Hiring people with the wrong skin colors?
The news cycles since Trump won the election is fucking terrible. Every corporation is mask off and drop anything that might benefit the populace so that they go back to being cowboys and treat employees like shit.
I want to personally say fuck you to everyone that voted for Trump. I hope that you and all the members of your close circle that voted for Trump die a painful death, after being economically fucked out of any little wealth you have.
The world is better off without you cunts.
The gulags were populated for good reason. “Waaahhh communists killed millions in their gulags,” yeah, millions of Nazis. Yet apparently that still wasn’t enough.
Buddy, I’m with you on Communists being antifascist, but the gulags are not something to be praised. Many innocent people were sent there for simply displeasing Stalin in some way.
Yes, WW2 would have been much longer and likely unwinnable without Soviet involvement, but praising the Gulags is just picking which concentration camp you like best.
Stalin should’ve gone to the gulags.
Is that who you think Stalin put in them…? Really?
Yeah he should’ve put himself in there too while he was at it. America didn’t put any fascists in gulags though, they hired them to help fascists continue the fight and they’ve been winning ever since.
You missed a couple history lessons, there, bro.
Lol no, they killed literal civilians, the ones they swore to protect
That’s because they didn’t put enough fascists in the gulags, including the ones that turned on their own people and put them in the gulags.
98%?? I love costco
Yeah I was on the fence about getting a Costco membership since I am single and dont shop much.
But just for the few times I need stuff that is available at Costco I will get a membership.
Even if I end up paying a little more overall.
I got my membership as a 20-something living alone and have never regretted it. Purchasing contact solution alone made up the cost of the membership! Then if I got gas there a couple times a year I was definitely saving.
The one thing I dislike about Costco is that I have to psyche myself up to go. I hate shopping in general because it uses up a lot of spoons for me, and Costco tends to take even more. It’s usually crowded, there’s so much stuff that I typically want to wander, and then everything I buy is huge so loading up the car can be a pain. By the end my back hurts, I’m tired, and I’m sick of people.
And yet I still haven’t even considered giving up my membership in over 10 years.
If you ever need to make a big purchase and it’s something they carry (e.g stove, washer/dryer, big tv) the membership can make the difference even if you just do it for the 1 year.
I pay for the $60/yr one. In the last year, I got a leaking car tire patched for $20, and did 3 quick trips to the warehouse for items on my shopping list.
Worth it.
They do sell stuff in larger packages than most stores, but very little of it is actually in such an absurd quantity that a household of 1 or 2 couldn’t reasonably use it. Another thing I appreciate is that since they typically only carry 2 or 3 options for any given product, I feel reasonably confident that their buyers have vetted those products well, and the non-staple things we do buy generally seem to be pretty solid quality.
It’s also one of my first shopping stops for electronics and appliances, since they usually offer include and extra year or 3 of warranty coverage.
They do sell stuff in larger packages than most stores, but very little of it is actually in such an absurd quantity that a household of 1 or 2 couldn’t reasonably use it.
Yeah, you gotta go to a special “Business Center” Costco to get the real bulk experience these days.
I gotta have somewhere to purchase the metric shit tons of beer I require to live in this country without constantly wanting to put a bullet in my brain, and Costco fits the bill nicely with its wide variety of local (and imported!) beer available for purchase at low, low prices every day. 🍻
Taking the edge off of the apocalyptic hellscape that is America in 2025. Thanks, Costco! 🤗
Do they still have that Kirkland brand vodka? This was another fascinating little tidbit when I visited the U.S. last (and since I’ll probably never go again I’m curious).
Grandparents spending their evenings getting loaded on no-name vodka and Fox News. It was really depressing.
My vehicle makes the gas prices worth the membership, even if that was all I purchased.
Shit. I might just re-up to the executive membership this year. I don’t shop there as much as I used to but I could still probably manage to get enough rewards to cover the membership price.
One thing to look into is their car insurance. It dropped my rate by $100 a year which was more then the cost of membership.
Oh yeah, we already got coverage through them. Home and auto bundled. I don’t know that it saved us much but the coverage is a lot better.
$1.50 hotdog & soda too! The CEO said he’d rather burn the company to the ground than increase that price.
Welcome to Costco. I love you.
The backlash against DEI is at the individual level imo. How people feel is the reality, see the economy (which is also an attribute of using the wrong metrics to measure performance as it relates to the consumer but that is a different topic).
Let’s see if I can explain it: So let’s say you’re an average white guy, and you know your company has a DEI program. You feel like you work very hard, or at least as hard as everyone else in your workplace, but you see that your minority coworkers get promotions or that the new hire for a better paid position than yours is a minority you start to feel as though you’re getting passed over because of your identity. This could be because it is a diverse workplace and so the best people for the promotion may just happen to be of other races or women. It could also be actual racism which I’m sure happens but it’s probably very very rare. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that you see people who are different from you getting promoted, and you don’t particularly feel they are better than you.
Then you maybe look a little bit into what the theory behind DEI is and you learn that it’s proponents argue that there is systemic favoritism towards white straight males which is why if you have two equally capable candidates but one is white and the other is a minority, you should choose the minority. As a straight white male you won’t feel (and frankly should not, I’m sorry) that you are responsible for your advantage in society, so what you’ll feel is that now you’re the disadvantage one and that DEI is just racism against white straight males. It isn’t but that doesn’t change how the individual feels.
My personal opinion is that DEI is more of a bandaid than a solution and some of the backlash is warranted. The real solution is for people to have equal opportunity at the lowest level, meaning education. There’s no reason for some schools to be better than others, and less for that difference to arise from the value of the houses in the schools district. Of course Trump and co will not fix it either because they campaigned on destroying the education system because they seemingly want a slave caste or something. But if everyone had equal access to good schools and colleges, I don’t think DEI as it is implemented in most orgs would be needed.
Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to @danc4498@lemmy.world
I work at a pretty progressive company (comparatively but definitely not perfect) and DEI there has nothing to do with preferential treatment, nor does it need to be.
The fact is that if you want to hire the top X people in the labor market, but your hiring and business practices exclude, say, half of that market, you absolutely will not get the actual top X. You will have to reach deeper into your half and be forced to pick people that are less qualified and/or capable.
So DEI, at least where I’m at, is about widening that pool so that you can actually get top talent. That means reevaluating your business practices to figure out why you’re excluding top talent. Maybe your recruiters always go to specific colleges for recruitment and certain websites. Maybe just the way they’re talking to candidates is more attractive to a certain type of person. Maybe you’ve got hiring requirements and an interview process that is not actually predictive of success. Maybe candidates are looking for some benefit that you’re not offering. Everything needs to be looked at.
For example, “Women just want more flexible working arrangements so that’s why we can’t get them” is something I hear often. Well, have you actually evaluated why your company is so inflexible? Is it actually necessary? Or are your executives a bunch of people who learned how to manage in the 20th century and haven’t changed since then? Maybe there are things you can do to enter the 21st century and make room for more women, not just because they’re women, but because you gain access to people who are actually better at their job than the ones you’ve had. Not every company can be supremely flexible, of course, but the number of times that inflexibility is actually necessary of much smaller than its prevalence.
The demographic breakdown of your workforce is a quick and easy weathervane to help figure out how these efforts but of course they’re not everything. Diversity comes in maybe forms, not just skin color and genitals. But in my company they’re used in a backwards looking manner, to see how new policies are working, not for quota filling and preferential treatment.
There’s a fundamental truth that certain white people (i would say over 50%) who don’t believe they are racist - will never hire a non-white person for a position, and they aren’t even consciously aware that this is the case.
There’s just a natural subconscious bias towards people that look and sound like you do. DEI helps to overcome that.
Yes, but I think this a bias reinforced by the same point I made above about education. All schools should be as equally good as possible, or at the very least they should be equally funded and have the same program etc. And then we should aim that schools are as diverse as possible.
It will not completely solve the issues, rural areas by their very nature will probably remain very white and very entrenched. But it would alleviate it a lot.
That brings me to another point, that I think no one has made to rural Americans. If they are being left behind and there’s a housing crisis, why the fuck are their politicians not running campaigns on using government money to fund industry and development in the huge amount of literally empty space there is in this country? We could build the European walkable cities dems dream so much about in the heart of America, and make it affordable too, at least at the beginning. I’ve thought about a lot and I think a plan to develop the economy of the heartland of America would be a good platform for a democratic candidate to run on and it could fit within all the trappings of a The “Golden Age” of America that people want. And it would be a national project, something we sorely need to unite us again.
Because change is hard, and people would rather be told comfortable lies. So the grifters and liars get into office on their platforms of lies, and instead of doing anything useful they just grift.
I think “will never hire a non-white person for a position” is a little far but I do think “are unlikely to ever hire a non-white person for a position” (maybe even “highly unlikely”) is fair.
I commented this earlier but quite a few corps that tend to beat the market in returns have not abandoned DEI initiatives. These are corporations that will not bat an eye to plunge thousands into poverty or worse to save .007 cents on manufacturing costs. This tells you that they believe that DEI has some tangible value on their performance whether it’s through marketing opportunity or because their workforce is actually better.
But I think abandoning DEI for many companies is the right choice, as bad DEI is magnitudes worse than no DEI.
Is it not like anything else? It’s the implementation and execution of the program that makes the difference in whether it’s better or worse… DEI is an incredibly broad term. Many companies try to diversify their workforce because it’s always better for business to have different perspectives… no?
For example, work in a male dominant field, always trying to hire females, they are simply unicorns because they are almost non-existent in the field.
Yes, but most things that are badly implemented in a work place don’t lead to people feeling resented and angry at society.
People feeling resented and angry at society… Are these the same people that tell me I need to pull up my own bootstraps? If so, the two messages are conflicted.
Usually how this goes, there is a few bad implementations that go viral and make everyone else look bad…
I would a source to back this up if possible please.
Once again, Costco surprises me with basic human decency that is largely missing in the corporate world. I know it’s not a high bar, not as if they’re on the forefront of progressivism, or anything. But it’s well beyond the average in the profit-driven and labor grinding society, and that sort of corporate action, among their other positives as an employer, should be recognized and supported. Good on you, Costco.
…called DEI programs “illegal, immoral and detrimental to shareholder value,”
Wrong, wrong, and only if they implemented DEI as a blind performance metric… Which is also wrong. You get half a point out of three, or 16.6%.
And with a grade that low, I’m completely justified in giving that person…
A Super F!
FYI: for normal corporations (i.e. not ones with individual majority stockholders like Musk) shareholder votes are almost always dominated by votes from the big mutual funds, and the managers of those funds always vote for whatever the board recommends as a matter of policy. The actual mom & pop investors who own the shares through those mutual funds in their 401(k)s etc. are entirely disenfranchised.
In other words, the actual owners of Costco had mostly fuck-all to do with this. We’re just lucky that Costco’s board of directors isn’t terrible, for once.
I’m not sure why you’re specifically focusing on mutual funds. Holding of public shares is supposed to be a passive income whether it’s individual investors (who are hopefully diversifying their investments), mutual funds, ETFs, etc. The board works for the shareholders by collecting data, assessing that data, and then making recommendations so that investors don’t have to do that research. Sure, it’s possible that the shareholders vote against the advice of the board, but it’s pretty rare. If the board is out of step with the shareholders, they should probably be replaced. This is a virtuous cycle (or vicious cycle for other stocks) where Costco is seen as a fairly ethical company, so investors who are looking for stocks that meet their values choose companies like Costco (whether they are individual investors or investment vehicles marketed as fitting certain values). These investors choose a board who represents their values, so I don’t think, “we’re just lucky that Costco’s board of directors isn’t terrible,” I think it’s a part of this virtuous cycle.
Mutual funds are a systemic risk by being dumb money. Normally this is talked about in the context of index investing. The more money blindly tracks an index, the more that index becomes detached from reality. This causes measurable inefficiencies in the market [0]. In practice, this isn’t that big of a deal, since “follow the index” essentially means “do what the smart money does”, so the distortion is not that great.
In the context of voting, the analogous action would be abstaining (or voting with the majority of voting active shareholders). I suspect the reason this is not done is a combination of there not being enough active voting shareholders (as you say, that is why boards are a thing), and the risk of activist investors.
On a much smaller scale, we have something similar happening in my local HOA. The county owns about a dozen units as part of it’s public housing program. Combined with the low turnout at HOA meetings, and the 1 property = 1 vote, this means that they could vote for essentially anything they want.
In practice, their policy is to show up to all meetings but abstain from votes unless they are needed to make a quarum. If they are needed, they vote for whatever the consensus was among every else there.
[0] See the index effect. Being added to an index increases a stock’s value, despite there being no change to the underlying fundamentals.
I’m not sure why you’re specifically focusing on mutual funds. Holding of public shares is supposed to be a passive income whether it’s individual investors (who are hopefully diversifying their investments), mutual funds, ETFs, etc. The board works for the shareholders by collecting data, assessing that data, and then making recommendations so that investors don’t have to do that research. Sure, it’s possible that the shareholders vote against the advice of the board, but it’s pretty rare.
I’m focusing on mutual funds because, when you own shares of a fund instead of shares in the business directly, you don’t get to vote (usually) even if you want to.
And now I’m going to focus even more specifically:
This is a virtuous cycle (or vicious cycle for other stocks) where Costco is seen as a fairly ethical company, so investors who are looking for stocks that meet their values choose companies like Costco (whether they are individual investors or investment vehicles marketed as fitting certain values).
Most stocks these days are held not only in mutual funds, but in index mutual funds, where they literally don’t make the decision you just cited as the thing that keeps the corporate boards aligned with the shareholder values. They just buy every company weighted by market cap instead, and in so doing, jettison all of that kind of influence they would have otherwise had.
In summary, mom & pop investors (i.e. folks who invest entirely or almost entirely via the index funds offered by their 401(k)) are not only disenfranchised in terms of share voting, but also don’t actually choose what companies to invest in – the fund managers and 401(k) plan administrators have taken all of that power from them.
Do you see the problem yet?
spoiler
To be clear: the takeaway should not be “index funds bad” – I like index funds and own index funds. The takeaway should be "every mutual fund should be required by law to offer pass-through voting of shares.
Not always. I get proxy vote requests pretty often.
You also have the option to choose opinionated funds that only invest in things like green energy.
The whole dei firing thing doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like unqualified people were hired.
Actually, that’s exactly what they think.
The anti-DEI crowd thinks exclusively in zero-sum outcomes. There is exactly one Best Candidate for a position, who happens to look like them. If a different candidate is hired, then the whole process is obviously unfair, because they didn’t hire the one
whiteright candidate.Right. Not sure why I used logic…
Anything that erodes the advantage of Cis Het White owners is a threat.
Shareholders, if you keep that up, maybe I’ll grudgingly, once in a while, “think of the shareholders”.
