Costco and Teamsters reach a tentative deal to avert a strike

A threatened strike at 56 Costco stores across six states has been averted for now, as the company and negotiators for the Teamsters union, representing 18,000 workers, reached an 11th hour tentative agreement, the union told CNN early Saturday morning.

A threatened strike at 56 Costco stores across six states has been averted for now, as the company and negotiators for the Teamsters union, representing 18,000 workers, reached an 11th hour tentative agreement, the union told CNN early Saturday morning. Full terms of the deal were not immediately available. Costco did not respond a request for comment. The strike would have been the largest ever at an American retail chain, and the first ever at the big box retailer. Beyond wages and benefits, the union also had demands regarding seniority pay, paid family leave, bereavement policies, sick time, and safeguards against surveillance. The agreement, announced several hours after the contract expired at 11:59pm PT Friday, does not completely end the threat of a strike. It would still need to be ratified by rank-and-file members of the union at Costco before it goes into effect. Last fall, unionized workers at Boeing voted down a tentative deal its union leadership had reached with the aircraft maker and started a strike that lasted two months. But most tentative deals do result in a final contract. Teamsters members at Costco make up 8% of its 219,000 employees at 616 US stores, according to company filings. But a strike by that many workers would behave been significant for the largely non-union sector of the economy. Labor Department statistics show that less than 5% of retail workers are represented by unions. Most of those unionized retail workers work in grocery stores. The specific locations of the unionized stores have not been identified by either the union or company. But the union said they are in six states along the East and West Coasts – Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia as well as California and Washington state, the latter being Costco’s corporate home. Costco had said on Friday that even if its unionized workers had gone on strike, “all of our locations will be open for business this weekend,” an indication that it intended to use management and non-union staff to keep stores operating.