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.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      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.

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • drapermache@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      If you read hard right tweets, you’ll see they use DEI in place of slurs for any minority. Just like critical race theory, they’ve twisted the meaning to whip up a frenzy and have something for the masses to hate.

      • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        “Kamela would be the DEI hire for President” is easier for the center to swallow than “Cmon, do we really want a [N-Word] [Synonym for Female Dog] running a white man’s show?”

        Though the latter is what they mean

      • Wren@lemmy.worldM
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        3 months ago

        Same as what they did with BLM. They jump from one liberal cause to another, changing its meaning and context into something they can use to fuel their misinformation campaigns for the purpose of creating hate and fear amongst their more ignorant numbers.

      • Pixlbabble@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        More like getting rid of the renamed Affirmative Action. We already have an EEOC we don’t need this.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      You have to understand something about fascism’s base: its the mediocre. It really speaks to the sort of people who feel like they’re owed more (including personal achievements) but think that as a them specifically trait. It’s the sort of person who see a black woman being an engineer and think that they deserve that position not her, despite her having gone to engineering school and them having been a D student in high school who didn’t go to college or someone who failed out of an engineering program. They look at any success from historically marginalized groups as unearned because clearly they deserve that success more. And so DEI which seeks to encourage more diversity in successful positions out of an acknowledgement that diverse groups are more successful infuriates these people

    • clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      For example, using gender discrimination, there is a great pressure to hire female workers to ensure diversity but, in some areas, there are simply no female candidates. Companies should absolutely make an effort to hire the best for their needs and keep an eye for diversity, but if they should not be forced to hire a less capable female if other capable candidates exist just because the management is being forced to hire a certain diversity target among their ranks

    • Merlin@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      It’s mostly elites that think they’re losing elite status–which to them feels like persecution. Additionally, I do think a lot of DEI initiatives at companies are poorly designed.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It depends on the implementation and the PR …. I’ve had several conversations with my conservative brother.

      I describe how it’s a strength of my company to have a “melting pot” of different perspectives, getting the best skills from all people, we work better together when everyone is safe and comfortable being who they are …. I’m specifically happy that they plucked my coworker, as a woman in a male dominated field, out of the trenches because she’s an excellent manager

      My brother sees unskilled workers forced on him by management fiat. He sees having to do more to make up for their lack of ability, motivation or work ethic. He sees a double standard where they can get away with stuff that would get him fired.

      I dont know how much of this is the implementation and how much is the person reacting but we have very opposite perspectives

    • Hellsfire29@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      This is how I feel, actually. Free education and paid training can rule out the need for any DEI initiatives, no matter what color/ethnicity, they’re qualified because they received the education and training that they need.

      But then again, I can understand why a white manager would rather hire a white person.

      But whose to say a black manager wouldn’t do the same and just hires black people. Or any race. Wouldn’t you feel more comfortable with like minded people rather filling up your store with “diverse employees” ?

      It’s a crutch that MOST people have. Like leftists only hiring leftists. Or conservatives only hiring conservatives.

      Like you said, if the “diverse employee” is less qualified than his white counterpart, hire the more qualified individual.

      If you’ve ever visited any VA hospital, you can see how many shitty people they hire, especially when half of the doctors are just interns. And no one gets fired.

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The whole dei firing thing doesn’t make any sense. It’s not like unqualified people were hired.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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 white right candidate.

  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • blazeknave@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Shareholders or board? I think they’re one in the same since they’re mostly held by institutional investment. I’m so curious what their thought processes are.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    DEI is also just called “teambuilding”. All successful companies do it in some form

    • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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

      • Majorllama@lemmy.worldBanned
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        3 months ago

        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.

          • Majorllama@lemmy.worldBanned
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            3 months ago

            I said “Fuck Costco and DEI bullshit”. Please point to where I blamed women or minorities for either of those things.

              • Majorllama@lemmy.worldBanned
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                3 months ago

                Except for the rest of that comment which you cropped out where I go on to explain what I was blaming the management for. Because itnwas the women. Specifically the minority women who sat around doing the easiest jobs at any given time because the racist and sexist management allowed them to do so if they would play along with his creepy bullshit.