Costco to Hold Two-Day Union Strike Starting Tomorrow... Chaos Inevitable Ahead of Seol Holiday

Union Holds Rally in Front of Gwangmyeong Branch on the 4th
Significant Labor-Management Disagreement Over Collective Agreement

The Costco Korea labor union will go on a general strike for two days starting from the 3rd. Since the strike takes place on the weekend just before the Lunar New Year holiday, consumer confusion is inevitable. Furthermore, the union has stated that if the management does not show a progressive stance during this strike, they plan to escalate the level of their struggle.

According to the Costco union on the 2nd, the union leadership has delivered strike guidelines to union members and has been touring nationwide stores since December last year to encourage participation in the strike. Costco has about 6,000 employees, of which more than 500 are union members.

Exterior view of a Costco store in Korea. (Photo by Asia Economy DB)

Through the strike guidelines delivered on the 26th of last month, the union decided that all members will refuse to go to work on the 3rd and the 4th, and union members in the metropolitan area will hold a rally in front of the headquarters at the Gwangmyeong branch at 11 a.m. on the 4th. Non-metropolitan union members will take group and individual certification shots in front of their stores' strike banners and share them in the union communication channels.

A representative of the Mart Industry Union of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, to which the Costco union belongs, said, "Although we are going on strike, the door for dialogue with the company is always open. However, if the company does not show a progressive stance during this strike as well, we plan to escalate the level of our struggle."

Costco labor and management have been in conflict over the collective bargaining agreement for more than three years. Costco, a U.S.-based warehouse-style large retailer, entered the Korean market in 1998, but unlike the three major domestic large retailers, it has yet to conclude a basic collective bargaining agreement in labor-management relations. The Costco union was established in August 2020 and began negotiations with management for a collective bargaining agreement in October of the same year, but the discussions were suspended after a year due to unresolved differences. Negotiations did not take place for two years afterward due to the impact of COVID-19.

Negotiations resumed in September last year after a worker in their 20s died at the Costco Hanam branch in June. The bereaved family claimed that the worker died due to being forced to work excessively in the heat, filed for industrial accident recognition, and the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service approved it in November last year.

However, labor and management have yet to present an agreement since negotiations resumed. The union withdrew demands for wage increases and welfare improvements from their original collective bargaining proposal but requested guarantees for union activities and industrial safety, which management has not accepted.

A representative of the Mart Industry Union said, "We requested industrial safety measures such as rest facilities and break times to prepare for extreme heat and cold, but management has not presented any proposals. We also asked for measures like installing chairs that support the back at cash registers, as other marts have done, but this was also rejected." In fact, the collective bargaining proposals presented by management did not include clauses on measures to prevent heat and cold-related accidents or workplace environment improvements.

Disagreements between labor and management over the criteria for recognizing paid time off for union activities are also obstacles. The paid time off system recognizes the time spent by employee representatives on union activities or labor relations law-related representative activities as working hours without wage loss, and the amount can be set up to 36,000 hours annually depending on the size of the union.

Management’s collective bargaining proposal limits paid union activity hours to 'five union delegates attending two delegate meetings annually,' 'five union delegates attending one general meeting annually,' and 'five delegates’ time for collective bargaining with the company for wage agreements.' The union argues that this proposal effectively recognizes only about 80 hours of paid time off per year. For comparison, Homeplus recognizes 16,800 hours, and IKEA recognizes 5,000 hours of paid time off. The union is reportedly demanding a level of paid time off similar to IKEA’s.

Meanwhile, the Costco union filed a dispute adjustment request with the Central Labor Relations Commission in October 2021, and the commission’s decision to suspend adjustment granted the union the right to strike.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.