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Forced Monkey Labor Leads Costco To Ban Some Products

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The alleged use of forced monkey labor has led Costco to stop selling Thai-made coconut products.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been tracking such animal abuse since 2019, while urging retailers to pull merchandise made from the bad actors to discourage the practice, USA Today reported.

“No kind shopper wants monkeys to be chained up and treated like coconut-picking machines,” PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement, according to the outlet.

“Costco made the right call to reject animal exploitation, and PETA is calling on holdouts like Kroger to follow suit.”

PETA’s investigation found chained-up monkeys can pick around 400 coconuts a day and are then stuffed in cages until their next shift, the outlet reported. (Read more from “Forced Monkey Labor Leads Costco To Ban Some Products” HERE)

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Costco Just Told Hoarders What They Can Do With All Their Excess Toilet Paper

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For days and days it looked like Black Friday at Costco. Or, as the Instagram account “CostcoBuys” put it, “Panic at the Costco.” . . .

Customers lined up around stores to buy things they most certainly did not want to run out of in the case they’d be under quarantine for days on end.

And the rolled gold was increasing in value in the eyes of the hoarders. As a joke, this toilet paper roll was put in the fine jewelry section of Costco with a $200 price tag. . .

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So it’s come to this 😂

A post shared by Costco Buys (@costcobuys) on

But now Costco has made an announcement. All of the toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer, wipes, Lysol, water bottles, and rice hoarded by people by the cart and truck full will not be taken back. Signs in the store read (in all caps), “RETURNS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED ON TOILET PAPER, PAPER TOWELS, SANITIZING WIPES, WATER, RICE, LYSOL.”

(Read more from “Costco Just Told Hoarders What They Can Do With All Their Excess Toilet Paper” HERE)

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Costco Store Managers’ ‘Surprising’ Salaries Revealed

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Watch out, Walmart — Costco is trying to give its rival retail giant a run for its money (literally) when it comes to paying some of its top store managers.

Roughly a week after Walmart shared in a new report Opens a New Window. that its U.S. store managers are taking home an average of $175,000 a year, Reader’s Digest Opens a New Window. resurfaced just how much Costco is shelling out in comparison. And the publication says its findings are pretty “surprising.”

According to Glassdoor, general managers at the chain get an average base pay of over $106,000. Overall, their salaries range from nearly $50,000 to $180,000. Meanwhile, warehouse managers make between $52,000 to $146,000 each year, while assistant managers typically take in around $85,000.

But, as Reader’s Digest points out, these totals don’t even include the various benefits the employees enjoy throughout the year including bonuses, stocks and commission which can tack on an additional $8,000 or so annually.

“Salary and benefits are great for the industry … great culture,” a full-time Costco employee, who has been working at the company in Virginia for more than a decade, commented on Glassdoor’s review. “[The company’s] adaptive to growth and innovation as shoppers turn online for groceries.” (Read more from “Costco Store Managers’ ‘Surprising’ Salaries Revealed” HERE)

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Costco backs Obama, Obama touts Costco

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In his nationally televised speech Wednesday, Obama sang the praises of retail giant Costco, whose founder Jim Sinegal gave Obama the maximum contribution in two elections and hosted fundraisers for his reelection. Costco has also lobbied for many of Obama’s legislative priorities, including higher minimum wage, Obamacare, and price controls on financial processing fees…

Sinegal contributed the maximum $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund last year and also held a $35,800-a-plate fundraiser for Obama. In the 2008 election, Sinegal gave $43,500 to the DNC (here and here), which is, in effect, a contribution to Obama. On top of that, the Costco founder gave the maximum $2,300 to Obama’s campaign. So that’s more than $80,000 personally to Obama. Add in $100,000 to Obama’s SuperPAC, Priorities USA, plus the $2 million the July 2012 fundraiser reportedly brought Obama, and you’ve got a healthy amount of support…

Sinegal lobbied for Obamacare in 2009. His company has supported a higher minimum wage. Both of these regulations impose proportionally greater costs on the company’s smaller competitors — and almost every competitor is smaller, because Costco is the nation’s No. 2 retailer behind only Wal-Mart. Sinegal also spoke in Obama’s favor at the 2012 convention.

Costco’s founder did all these favors for Obama over five years, and on Wednesday, Obama returned the favor:

We’ll need our businesses, the best in the world, to pressure Congress to invest in our future, and set an example by providing decent wages and salaries to their own employees. And I’ll highlight the ones that do just that – companies like Costco, which pays good wages and offers good benefits; or the Container Store, which prides itself on training its workers and on employee satisfaction – because these companies prove that this isn’t just good for their business, it’s good for America.

Read more from this story HERE.