Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), the store that specializes in outdoor recreation products, has been staving off a union push.
In January 2022, employees at REI’s flagship store in Manhattan’s SoHo district were the first to file for union membership. The SoHo store’s 115 employees said the progressive, nature-oriented culture of the store had changed significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that persistent low wages and understaffed working hours were not enough to cover costs of living for workers. Workers filed to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
In response, REI management put out a statement that said, “We respect the rights of our employees to speak and act for what they believe—and that includes the rights of employees to choose or refuse union representation. However, we do not believe placing a union between the co-op and its employees is needed or beneficial.”
Since then, nine more REI stores across the country have joined the unionizing effort. At last count, the stores in New York’s SoHo; Berkeley, California; Cleveland, Ohio; Chicago, Illinois; Durham, North Carolina; Boston, Massachusetts; Bellingham, Washington; Maple Grove, Minnesota; and Castleton, Indiana all have employees who say they want the opportunity to form a union.
RWDSU said it has had to file more than 80 unfair labor practice charges against REI with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), because it refuses to bargain in good faith with its employees. REI is a member-owned retail co-operative company; it’s being represented by the Morgan Lewis law firm, which is known to be a tough negotiator against unions. Since taking on representation by Morgan Lewis in mid-May of 2023, REI representatives have not been showing up for scheduled negotiations, RWDSU claims. “In recent months, only REI’s attorneys have been appearing at bargaining sessions,” a RWDSU statement said, “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.”
Earlier this month, REI workers joined with RWDSU, an affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), to announce a new effort to have management listen to its union demands.
During a virtual media briefing on March 6, Zoe Dunmire, who works in REI’s SoHo store, talked about how the flagship store has been petitioning for a union contract by pressuring REI to bargain based on the progressive store’s ideological concept of comfort and need for shelter. “Our store is focused on the essential[s] of shelter,” Dunmire said, “which for us means a living wage and guaranteed minimum hours. … You need some sort of shelter protecting you from the elements and without a living wage and the money that we need to pay for our rent in a very expensive city and guaranteed minimum hours to ensure that we are working enough to afford that,” she said, adding that it is difficult to function.
Following the March 6 media briefing, REI employees from across the country got together on March 7 and hiked up to the company’s sprawling 68,000-square-foot office space in Issaquah, Washington. Knocking on the doors to the building and crowding around out in front, workers began to picket the location and called on management to pay attention to the needs of its workers. Members of the REI Bargaining Committee set up tables outside of the office building and invited REI management to sit down and start having unionizing talks right outside.