FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 25, 2024
Contact: Chelsea Connor | cconnor@rwdsu.org | 347-866-6259
REI UNION SOHO WORKERS WALK OUT ON ULP STRIKE & RALLY WITH LABOR GROUPS & CO-OP MEMBERS OUTSIDE FLAGSHIP NYC STORE DEMANDING THAT REI REACH A UNION CONTRACT BY END OF 2024 AMID COMPANY’S LARGEST ANNUAL SALE
(NEW YORK, NEW YORK) – Today, during the middle of REI’s annual Anniversary Sale, members of REI Union SoHo, represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), stopped work and walked off the job in an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike to protest REI’s failure to bargain a contract in good faith. REI SoHo workers picketed and demanded REI agree to reach a fair contract by the end of 2024. Photos and videos from the strike are available for media use here.
REI’s highly profitable annual Anniversary Sale (A-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 SoHo, New York store they’re hoping to remedy in contract negotiations, which have been underway since June 2022. The worker-led bargaining committee has only met ten times at the table since the company changed to new attorneys from the notoriously anti-union law firm, Morgan Lewis, LLP in June 2023, which was a significant departure from the 24 sessions they had the year before with the prior attorneys. Workers at REI Union SoHo who were 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. They have gone the longest without necessary pay increases, having been denied across the board pay hikes for non-Union REI workers since they organized in March of 2022.
Today’s ULP strike action taken at the SoHo, New York store is the latest in a string of many REI A-Sale actions by the REI Union, including actions by other RWDSU represented stores in Chicago, Illinois and Cleveland, Ohio, and other unionized REI stores across the country. Just two days ago, REI union SoHo workers rallied with allies in front of the store to demand the company bargain in good faith. Today, they walked off the job to show their solidarity and strength amid one of REI’s busiest shopping days. Their demands will not go unheard. Just Monday, May 20, 2024, a major elected official delegation at REI union Cleveland happened with RWDSU union siblings in Ohio. On Saturday, May 18, 2024, RWDSU union siblings at REI union Chicago walked out on a ULP strike. The cascade of events across all ten stores over the ten day sale has the company uncertain who and what’s next every day, with different types of actions taking place at different times and locations throughout the duration.
This tremendous show of worker power follows a union co-opted board meeting, which rallied REI co-op members to adopt stores across the country building the consumer pressure on the company to return decision makers to the table. Details on other actions can be found on the union’s social media accounts; all ten unionized stores have been 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.
This is now the second action at the SoHo, New York store during the A-Sale period, which has been rocked by actions at the company’s unionized stores demanding they reach a contract by the end of the year and bargain in good faith. This tremendous show of worker power followed a union co-opted board meeting, which rallied REI co-op members to adopt stores across the country building the consumer pressure on the company to return decision makers to the table. Details on other REI union actions taking place during A-Sale can be found on the union’s social media accounts; all ten unionized stores have been 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.
“For too long REI has rested on their laurels and let their public image drive sales while their management philosophy has been all about profits over people. We the workers have felt the consequences of their decisions; unsafe working conditions and severe understaffing, while we are underpaid despite bringing the expertise and knowledge that our customers rely on. Now that we have stood up and said “enough,” REI refuses to bargain in good faith, denying us a contract that gives employees the job stability that all workers have a right to. We are walking out to show REI that their employees ARE the REI co-op, and we will fight until we get what we deserve,” said Zoe Dunmire (She/Her), Retail Sales Specialist at the SoHo, New York REI Store and member of the worker-led Bargaining Committee.
“My name is Adam Woodley, and I’m going on strike to express my outrage at REI’s treatment of its union workers in the contract bargaining process. Since the Soho store unionized in 2022, REI has acted as if its anti-union actions are the normal way a ‘progressive’ company does business. But there is nothing normal about a company saying that workers are acting entitled by demanding enough wages to pay for rent and food, and maintaining unsafe working conditions just to reduce costs. And there is nothing normal about a company maintaining a progressive facade while actively fighting against its own workers who are trying to make material progressive changes in the workplace. REI has consistently subsidized their bad business practices with our low wages, and enough is enough. Our role as union workers is to hold REI accountable to the progressive values they espouse. As the source of all company profits, the workers need to have a seat at the table to ensure that our organization is driven by collaboration rather than exploitation. In that spirit, we are striking to demand that REI end its bad faith bargaining, and comes to the table to finalize a fair contract by the end of 2024. This is the only way to build a better company for workers, managers, customers, and anyone who believes that a life outdoors is worth fighting for,” said Adam Woodley (He/His) Retail Sales Specialist at the SoHo, New York REI Store.
“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).
“Enough is enough–REI needs to immediately start living up to its claims of progressive values by engaging in meaningful dialogue and reaching a contract agreement that honors the hard work and dedication of its employees,” said New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO President Vincent Alvarez. “Across the U.S., workers are fed up with illegal actions and first contract negotiations that drag on for years because corporations refuse to bargain in good faith. The entire New York City Labor Movement is proud to stand with REI’s courageous workers not just here in NYC but across the country as they fight for what they deserve.”
“I am proud to stand behind the REI SoHo workers who bravely walked out to demand the respect and fair wages they deserve because they are who make REI's profits possible. Accusations of stalled contract negotiations, anti-union tactics, and withheld pay increases raise concerns for workers' well-being. I call on REI to bargain in good faith,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
“Corporations emboldened to delay the bargaining process and engage in union-busting are faced with a stronger force: the growing strength of the labor movement. Their actions only empower us to push further, and I am proud to stand alongside our workers at REI and our organized labor partners at RWDSU as they continue their journey to a fair contract,” said Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, Chair of the Committee on Civil Service and Labor at the New York City Council.
“As an REI member, it’s disappointing that leadership has still refused to negotiate a contract in good faith. REI’s customers trust their brand not just because of what’s in the store, but the quality of service provided by the staff and the values touted by the Co-op. It’s shameful that REI has revealed themselves to be such hypocrites. As a Council Member representing the REI in Soho, I join the voices of workers, shoppers, and all New Yorkers in demanding REI to meet the union at the bargaining table,” said New York City Council Member Christopher Marte (REI SoHo is in his district).
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, in SoHo, New York, 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.