In the 3 years since REI’s first store unionized in 2022, the outdoor retailer has repeatedly said that unions aren’t “necessary or beneficial” for REI employees. And when REI issued company-wide raises from 2022 to 2024, unionized employees were left out.
So, it’s a significant victory for union organizers that REI Co-op has announced the start of contract negotiations with the 11 stores that have unionized since 2022. The August 1 announcement said REI will create a “national bargaining structure to inform store-level collective bargaining agreements.”
Moreover, REI will give unionized workers the wage increases and bonuses denied them from 2022 to 2024. At the time, the union decried REI’s decision to withhold raises from only unionized workers, and filed an official complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). That complaint has been dropped as part of REI’s agreement to give unionizing workers their raises.
The two unions representing REI workers — the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — welcomed the company’s decision to move forward with negotiations. As for the workers themselves, they’re more hopeful about the possibility of finally getting a union contract.
“We now have a clear path to a first contract at all of our unionized stores, including mine in Durham,” Si-Hua Chang, a sales specialist at REI Durham, told GearJunkie in a prepared statement. “I’m proud of my co-workers for what we’ve achieved so far as a union, and I’m excited for us to take that momentum to the table with REI going forward.”
GearJunkie reached out to REI Co-op and the two unions, but all parties declined to give further comment.
A Turbulent Year for the Co-op
REI’s pushback against unionizing workers isn’t the only decision that has rankled the co-op’s membership.
When President Donald Trump appointed Doug Burgum to lead the Department of the Interior in January, REI Co-op joined many other outdoor brands in endorsing Trump’s pick. But then Burgum and Trump began gutting federal agencies charged with protecting access to public lands, including the National Park Service.
So when Mary Beth Laughton became REI’s new president in March, she took the extraordinary step of issuing a public apology for the co-op’s endorsement of Burgum. But that wasn’t enough to slow the ire directed toward the company.
Outdoor celebrities like Pattie Gonia even took to social media, arguing that the oil and gas connections of other REI board members pointed to a larger problem at the company.
Opposition to REI’s direction reached a zenith in May. That’s when unionizing workers — organizing as REI Union — helped lead what it called a “historic” vote, as co-op members voted down every nomination to the company’s board of directors.
“This victory was only possible because REI members and REI workers stood together to send a resounding message that it is time for the co-op to return to its core values,” REI Union said at the time.
Across the U.S., more people are coming out to support unions than at any other time in recent memory, said Brandee Morris, president of North Carolina’s Local 466 for the American Federation of Government Workers (AFGE). Morris is not involved in unionizing efforts at REI, but she thinks it’s part of a larger movement driven by frustration over income inequality.
“I used to have like eight people in my monthly union meetings. Now it’s like 40-50 every month,” Morris said. “I don’t think it’s just a flash in the pan. I think it’s a movement. The more these billionaires continue to piss off the working class, the more it will happen.”
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