FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 20, 2024
Contact: Chelsea Connor | cconnor@rwdsu.org | 347-866-6259
CLEVELAND ELECTED OFFICIALS DEMAND THAT REI REACH A UNION CONTRACT BY THE END OF 2024 AND HAND DELIVER ULP CHARGES AMID REI’S LARGEST ANNUAL SALE AND JOIN SOLIDARITY RALLY WITH WORKERS
(CLEVELAND, OHIO) – During the middle of REI’s annual Anniversary Sale, a delegation of Cleveland elected officials hand delivered a letter to management at the REI store in Beachwood, Ohio, demanding the company bargain in good faith and commit to reaching a union contract by the end of 2024. In an unprecedented move, they also hand delivered recent unfair labor practice charges (ULPs) filed by the union on Friday at the store, adding to a growing litany of charges against the company still awaiting adjudication by the labor board. Following the delivery, elected officials joined rallying workers, REI Co-Op members, Cleveland labor groups including members of the North Shore Labor Federation (AFL-CIO), fellow union members and leaders from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), and others in support of REI workers. Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown also sent a letter to REI management demanding the company bargain in good faith. The Senator has supported the workers at the store since their long, needlessly delayed union election. Photos and videos from today’s action and rally are available for media use here.
REI’s highly profitable annual Anniversary Sale lasts from May 17-27, 2024. While the company stands to potentially bring in millions, if not hundreds of millions, their workers will continue to struggle to make rent, buy groceries, and commute to their low paying, sometimes unsafe jobs. Workers face a litany of other issues at the Cleveland, Ohio store they’re hoping to remedy in contract negotiations, which have been underway since July 2023, and have only met eight times with the company’s attorneys from their notoriously anti-union law firm, Morgan Lewis, LLP. Workers at REI Union Cleveland who were recently withheld routine merit and other pay increases by the company, are one of ten unionized stores across the country, where contract negotiations remain similarly stalled.
Today’s action taken at the Cleveland, Ohio store is the latest in a string of many REI Anniversary Sale actions by the REI Union, including an action at another RWDSU represented store in Chicago, Illinois just two days ago. Details on other actions can be found on the union’s social media accounts; all ten unionized stores will be participating in various ways during the sale in continued support of the national demand that REI commit to reaching a contract by the end of 2024.
“REI fails to take contract negotiations seriously. The lawyers often arrive late & leave early. REI bargaining team members work hard to draft proposals and the lawyers show up with nothing – no counter proposals and nothing new to discuss. REI workers deserve to be treated with respect. We deserve a fair contract by the end of 2024,” said Jennifer Adamson Gill (She/Her) Retail Sales Specialist at the REI Cleveland, Ohio store, and member of the worker-led Union Bargaining Committee.
“REI’s behavior continues to be in direct violation of the law and we will not back down until they are held accountable for these and their numerous other abuses of the law. REI cannot hire the most notoriously anti-union law firm, fail to comply with basic federal labor law, and then turn around and call themselves progressive and preach progressive values. Co-Op members, by the tens of thousands, support the REI Union, and united we are demanding REI come out from behind its false progressive green halo and commit to bargaining in good faith and reaching a fair contract,” said Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
“Cleveland’s unions are proud to stand in solidarity with our REI Union Cleveland brothers, sisters and siblings. These workers truly embody REI’s values of cooperation and respect. It’s past time that REI management honor the principles they preach and meet their legal obligation to engage in genuine, respectful bargaining with the workers. Enough is enough,” said Brian Pearson, North Shore AFL-CIO Campaigns Director.
“We urge REI to return to the bargaining table and bargain in good faith,” said Senate Minority Leader Nickie J. Antonio.
Earlier this month, just ahead of the Anniversary Sale actions, the REI Union National Steering Committee, comprised of workers who have unionized with both the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), held a “board meeting” with workers from all ten unionized stores across the country. This open union “board meeting” came on the heels of REI’s annual privately held corporate board meeting, which excludes co-op members and workers from participating in a real way. During the call, workers reviewed the company’s union busting practices, and gave a status update on the glacial pace of union contract negotiations.
The REI Union National Steering Committee also called on the company’s Board of Directors to hold the company accountable to the countless voices they failed to hear during their closed board meeting and demanded the company send decision makers back to the table and commit to bargaining a contract in good faith by 2024. This demand was delivered to the company by workers in March and has yet to be countersigned; it was also a question asked by thousands of co-op members during the open write-in question period ahead of the board meeting, which went unanswered, yet again, by the company during their meeting.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND:
Workers who won at the first organized REI store over two years ago in New York have been bargaining with the company without reaching a first union contract for almost two years, while others have similarly been left to languish at the table for months. Exactly a year into contract negotiations at the first store, REI announced it was changing its legal representation across all of its stores to Morgan Lewis, a notoriously, vehemently anti-union law firm. This led REI to cancel all bargaining sessions in the immediate weeks, and roll back an agreement to give the first unionized store the same increased pay scale it offered other non-unionized stores the day after their election, meaning workers have been working with less pay at that store than all of the other stores for almost a year. When negotiations resumed later in the summer, the move forced the worker-led bargaining committees at many stores to waste time recapitulating proposals that have been on the table for months, derailing and delaying bargaining.
For a company that purports to have so-called progressive values, it has only conducted itself with an anti-union animus, leading to 80+ unfair labor practice charges levied against the company, with many more on the way. In early May, the union petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for a 10J injunction against the company for its failure to to bargain over unilateral changes it made to working conditions of REI’s employees, including laying off numerous workers. The evidence shows that REI announced that it was making these changes and then denied the demands of the unions to bargain over the changes before unlawfully implementing them.
For over nine months, only REI’s attorneys have been appearing at bargaining sessions, further delaying the process of getting to a contract. Company management and decision makers have continually failed to attend sessions and negotiate with workers directly.
On March 7, 2024, workers from all of the unionized stores across the country literally brought the bargaining tables to the company and demanded they come out and bargain in good faith. Union Representatives from all, then nine (now ten), Bargaining Committees co-signed a letter of commitment to reach a contract by the end of 2024, which workers also delivered to REI Headquarters; the union is still awaiting response from the company.
REI may think if they stay in their Washington treehouse, the movement to unionize REI will shrink, but in fact, the REI Union is only growing, as a ninth store in Castleton, Indiana joined their fellow unionized workers in early 2024, and workers in Santa Cruz, California just won their union election days ago, becoming the 10th unionized store at the company.
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Learn more about the growing REI unionization movement here.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) represents 100,000 members throughout the United States. The RWDSU is affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). For more information, please visit our website at www.rwdsu.org, Facebook:/RWDSU.UFCW Twitter:@RWDSU.