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.

  • apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Like great that Costco shut this down, because of decency and what is right but also… good fucking god the bar is so low.

    • apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          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.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    DEI sounds like an incredibly easy and cheap policy to follow if you weren’t already shitheels to begin with.

    • BigTrout75@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

      • Soleos@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        How was DEI not politicized from the very beginning? It was literally born out of the civil rights movement.

  • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Costco has, notoriously, been very “woke”

      Like seizing the means of $1.50 hotdog production?

      • redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        “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.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Hey pieces of shit that proposed this, please don’t boycott Costco. ! Pleasssseee!!! It would be such a bummer to have shorter lines and to not see you dragging your shitty kids around the store by the arm with you’re cart full of cheese and camo jackets.

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The shareholders argued that the Supreme Court ruling in the case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard found that Harvard’s use of race when choosing who to admit to the school violated the 14th Amendment.

    We are just gonna keep paying a godawful price for allowing this vile stacked court.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    With Jelinek no longer at the reins, this might be the beginning of the end for Costco’s progressiveness. It’ll depend on which shitbirds are pushing for the anti-DEI resolution. Jelinek would have told them to go fuck themselves, much as he did throughout his tenure when there were pushes for typical line-goes-up enshittification policies.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      How long until after the founder dies until the $1.50 hotdogs go away.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it before he was buried.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Jelinek wasn’t a founder, they’re long gone. He was CEO from 2010 or so until last spring when a large part of the growth occurred.

  • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Pressure from the rich racist fucks who own everything. Something is clearly wrong with them.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Technically, shareholder votes allow everyone who owns a stock share to vote. I regularly vote on Volkswagen, VYM, and others because a third of my savings are in stocks. It ain’t much but it’s honest work.

      With that in mind, that means these votes very well could be from racist common folks, which is an even more grim scenario.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Thats fair, but in Costco’s particular case Vanguard owns 9.33% and BlackRock owns 7.49%. State Street Corp owns 4.20% (Nice)

          Institutional shares in total are 71.86% split among 71 different 13F filers, which includes the three listed above.

          That means 28.14% are owned by individuals with the largest individual owner being former CEO Craig Jelinek 0.08% of all outstanding shares as of July 19, 2024. He leads with a very very large margin.

          So with that in mind, the most likely event was that a large enough number of companies and individuals voted yes, and that some mixture of both also voted no. But I absolutely do concede to your very well made point, you were correct to say, that disproportionately a bunch of rich suits and ties voted for the end of DEI. Especially if they perceived economic incentive to hire literally anybody, prioritizing high efficiency able bodied and minded people, over specifying a diverse team. I do not agree with that sort of business philosophy but I have to acknowledge their reasoning: a larger pool of workers means lower labor costs.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    A lot of the votes are controlled by mutual fund managers and investment firms - this could go bonkers.

    • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      this could go bonkers

      In what sense? I doubt that the voting or its consequences will be particularly dramatic regardless of the outcome. Costco wouldn’t be the first company to keep a DEI program, and it wouldn’t be the first company to ditch one either. In both cases, most outrage will probably come from a small but vocal group of people on the internet rather than anyone who could have a significant economic effect on Costco’s bottom line.

      (There’s a small chance that the outcome snowballs into a public-relations problem, but I’m not sure what the safer outcome is in that context. Probably keeping the program, at least because maintaining the status quo attracts less attention, but with Trump as president, who knows…)

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    It’s a conservative activist organization, not some random investors.

    Costco’s most recent “Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders,” which contains information about business matters that will be voted on at the January 23, 2025 meeting, included an anti-DEI shareholder proposal that was submitted by the National Center for Public Policy Research.

    Value Edge Advisors describes the National Center for Public Policy Research as a “reprehensible radical right” organization that has a history of filing anti-DEI lawsuits against various companies, including Starbucks, Nasdaq, and more. Its funders include right-wing groups like the Coors foundation.

    https://boingboing.net/2024/12/28/costco-claps-back-at-reprehensible-radical-right-organizations-anti-dei-demand.html

  • SpiceDealer@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I see Costco as simply a place to buy groceries but I got to give them credit for not giving into culture war bullshit.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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    2 months ago

    Good for them. There are some serious issues with current DEI policies, but too many places are folding to political pressure and throwing out the baby with the bathwater.