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.
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.
from the makers of bowser’s big bean burrito…
Sounds like there’s one company that cares more about employees than Nazi investors.
Bruh…
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.
What’s wrong with a cart full of cheese? I haven’t bulk bought cheese in my adult life, but I have bought several bars and several bags of shredded cheese at the same time. I’d do it again, too!
Just the illiteration… Cheese away, my friend!
My brain is exploding at the idea of cheese and jacket being illiterative and I hate it but the sound is so close that I can’t really argue.
Huzzah! I’m not stingy with the cheese, btw. Havarti plain, with dill, and with jalapenos for everyone!
Mmmm……and that giant Oaxaca Cheese Knot they sell. And 3 pound blocks of tillamook cheddar. God I do love cheese.
That Oaxaca cheese knot sounds amazing! Anyone know if Sam’s has something similar? We don’t have a CostCo near me.
I have seen the same brand of cheese at Walmart in a slightly smaller knot I think. It is such a great melting cheese.
Awesome! I’ll take a look there.
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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.
Pressure from the rich racist fucks who own everything. Something is clearly wrong with them.
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.
Common folks don’t own very much of the stock market.
Three Wall Street firms control the majority share of 95% of S&P500 companies
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.
Costco stock price is about $930, so to become “a group of shareholders”, you’d technically need three people to spend that much money and then start making their demands.
Or at least I wasn’t able to find how large this “group of shareholders” was. If it had been a significantly large one, Costco wouldn’t have been able to brush it off so easily, I believe.
It’s a stupid 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.
Ok, but biggest owners are Blackrock & Vanguard megavultures (like all the everythings).
The proposal came from a racists NCPPR group, so without significant support & the board just jumped at the free PR opportunity.
How is Vanguard a mega-vulture? Their ownership stake derives from their index funds, which make up American retirement funds like 401ks and IRAs. They mostly vote according to board recommendations, but have increasingly tried to offer customers other voting options.
You might be able to answer this for me as I don’t really understand.
What is the value of shareholders for massive corporations? Is it that they fund retirements of future generations?
Surely there has got to be a better way. The way I see companies structured with shareholders seems to inevitably make the product or service worse due to demand for increase growth and return for shareholders and it really frustrates me.
What is the value of shareholders for massive corporations?
Corporations don’t start off massive. They start off small and lacking “capital” or money with which to fund the creation and support of their products before they become profitable and self-sustaining. So, how do they motivate people to lend them money? They sell shares, aka ownership, of the company. If the company succeeds, the shares become more valuable and the shareholder that bought them can sell them for more than they initially paid. Mostly, massive corporations don’t need to raise money in this way of selling shares, so most shares are traded publicly through third parties.
Is it that they fund retirements of future generations?
Kind of. Retirement is expensive, and saving alone isn’t really enough to pay for it. On the whole, stocks tend to go up, so people mostly invest their savings into the stock market for years before they retire so that their money will grow enough to retire. Individually, people are usually trying to find their own retirements, not future generations. However, there do exist big retirement funds for entire companies called pensions that are interested in growing a pool of money for its current employees and future ones. Vanguard, and similar companies, offer tools to make investing for retirement easier, like accounts that you don’t have to pay taxes on until you retire, or single shares that are actually thousands of different company’s shares grouped into one.
To your last point, there could be better ways, but we don’t currently use them. There are problems with the system for sure.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
This all makes sense, but I do wonder if we should have a limit on the company size and shares. As you say massive corporations don’t need to raise money this way and it just extracts value from other areas. So I would be nice to see a system where shares are all bought back and cease trading once a company grows so large.
Thanks for the quick deep dive nfo
let’s not hire people from color to avoid lawsuits about racism
Awesome proposal
The shareholders are clowns.
Okay… but “Shareholders” means just one group of its many shareholders. It’s not like they are rejecting the consensus of their shareholders or something.
I could buy some shares and then send them a letter suggesting they leave the wholesale food market and they could reject that proposal.
Costco W
I still don’t understand why everyone’s so obsessed with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. He’s been dead for over 20 years.
Reminds me of Fans Against Gordon.
I see Costco as simply a place to buy groceries but I got to give them credit for not giving into culture war bullshit.
I thought costco was a worker owned co-op? When did it get motherfucking shareholders?
You might be thinking of WinCo.
Uh, the year 2000?
What? That hasn’t been the case…
I wonder how long until this makes it to the toxic YouTube cycle.
I hope they intend to eat the board at the earliest possible opportunity
They could always grind them up to make into those $1.50 hot dogs.
Did you misunderstand who’s the asshole here, or are you siding with the shareholders who called for the termination of DEI?
Costco’s board rejected a shareholder proposal to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies
I was just making a hot dog joke, man. We can grind up the shareholders first.
Alright Dahmer, calm the fuck down.
I took it as GTA2 Russian Mafia thing
