FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May13, 2024
Contact: Chelsea Connor | cconnor@rwdsu.org | 347-866-6259
REI UNION NATIONAL WORKER COMMITTEE CO-OPTS COMPANY BOARD MEETING & DEMANDS MANAGEMENT SIGN AGREEMENT TO REACH UNION CONTRACT BY END OF 2024
Workers Reviewed Real Status of Company Amidst Union Busting and Failure of the Company to Bargain in Good Faith – Opened Floor to Co-Op Member Questions
Announced Co-Op Member Adopt-A-Store Campaign Ahead of Company’s Largest Annual Sale
(NEW YORK, NEW YORK) – Today, the REI Union National Steering Committee, comprised of workers who have unionized with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), held a “board meeting” zoom call 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 notoriously 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. A recording of the event and additional supporting reference documents can be viewed and used by the media here.
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 and reaching an agreement 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 across 49 states and the District of Columbia during the write-in only question period ahead of the company’s closed board meeting.
“REI continues to demonstrate their lack of interest in reaching a final contract by engaging in bad faith bargaining. Time and time again they exclude unionized REI employees from pay increases and benefits that we have received in years prior thus breaking status quo. But seeing all of the videos and messages of support that Co-Op members continue to send gives us so much motivation to keep putting the pressure on REI. Our union is here to stay, and we will not give in to bullies,” said Zoe Dunmire (She/Her), Retail Sales Specialist at the SoHo, New York REI Store and member of the worker-led Bargaining Committee. REI SoHo was the first store to unionize and won their election on March 2, 2022.
“My coworkers and I formed a union because we've been told REI upholds certain values; specifically values that uplift the employee experience like supporting a work-life balance. They claim to support employees right to ‘A life outdoors is a life well lived’ when my coworkers are still scraping by on their wages while the cost of living increases each year. With the Co-Op board failing to address our store unions' right to negotiate a fair contract and not addressing member questions during the most recent board meeting, it's clear that REI isn't holding its own values to themselves,” said Alaina Preddie (She/Her), Retail Sales Specialist at the Castleton, Indiana REI Store, which was the ninth store to unionize and won their election recently on February 9, 2024.
During the open union board meeting, workers opened the floor for questions and comments from REI Co-Op members live, something REI’s corporate board meeting does not do. Members voiced concerns about REI’s failure to live up to its self-professed values and the backgrounds of some of its board members, including a former crude oil and gas executive. Most importantly, Co-op members asked about how they could support the union campaign.
REI is just days away from one of its largest annual sales, where it stands to bring in millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. As part of the “new business” section of the meeting, workers urged Co-Op members to Adopt-A-Store so they can engage in future actions in support of unionization efforts across the country as well as collective bargaining actions. REI Co-Op members and REI shoppers can sign up to support the REI Union at their local store here: www.ourrei.com/adopt-a-store
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 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.
The ten unionized REI stores span the country and are located in the following areas: SoHo, New York; Berkeley, California; Cleveland, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Durham, North Carolina; Boston, Massachusetts; Bellingham, Washington; Maple Grove, Minnesota; Castleton, Indiana; and Santa Cruz, California.
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.
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.