This is the problem with the way modern businesspeople think. They believe that unless you’re a member of upper-level management, you do not deserve a liveable wage. Some people don’t want to be upper-level managers. Some people just want to come to work every day, do their time, and go home. There’s nothing wrong with that, and they should not be relegated to poverty. Also consider: there are not enough top management jobs for every motivated person to have one. There again, they shouldn’t have to be stuck in poverty simply because there aren’t enough cushy management jobs to go around.

Costco couldn’t function without its store-level employees any more than it could function without its (visionary) CEO. I suggest that other retail companies don’t operate this way because it takes far more effort to manage tightly enough to be able to pay these salaries. Other retail management people would rather take the low road of paying poverty wages and no benefits so they can take their bonuses every year and pat themselves on the back for nothing other than mediocrity in management.

Finally, have you ever actually shopped at a Costco store? It’s a pleasure when compared to Wal-Mart/Target/many others. The employees feel as though their company cares for their wellbeing, and thus the employees care for the company’s wellbeing. Costco employees seem, to me, to be more helpful and friendlier overall. When I go to a lot of other stores in the same area, many of the employees seem as though I’m an inconvenience to be put out rather than their employer’s lifeblood. Take care of your employees and they will take care of you…Costco is living proof of this.

From where I sit, the idea isn’t so much working my/your way to the top as creating as much value as possible for as many stakeholders as possible. I don’t mean this in the utilitarian sense but in the “we’re all in this together” sense, To borrow a line from Dorothy Sayers:

(Work is to be seen) not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact, be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of work itself; and that man, made in God’s image, should make things as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.
— Dorothy L. Sayers, “Why Work?” Creed or Chaos, Sophia Institute Press 1949, page 89

It seems to me that frame of mind renders highly productive, zero pilferage workplaces where everyone, including the customer, wins.

I think you missed the point of the article. It was comparing the CEO pay of Walmart’s CEO vs. Costco’s CEO. The comment about Costco’s CEO not accepting his bonuses indicates his concern for the profitability of his company more than his own wealth.

The article’s comment about the 17.00/hr employee pay was a positive comment concerning Costco’s desire to pay its employees a liveable wage compaired to WalMart’s CEO’s comment that the retail indutry could not pay such a wage to its employees.

Costco seems to value the needs of its employees compaired to WalMart.

Your analysis is quick to point out that each CEO earned "bonuses". It would be interesting to know what the total compensation was for each executive, not just their salary.

On the topic of fairness in compensation, your article contrasts the $17 / hour employee vs. the executive pay. I submit that the executive who is in a position to have more impact on company earnings should be paid more, and an employee with less scope of duties should be paid less.

Isn’t the idea to be able to work your way to the top? What does it tell you when the top is so near to the bottom there is not much difference? How motivating is that?