REI workers launch consumer boycott of chain

BELLINGHAM, Wash.—The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers, who represent the employees at the REI retail outdoor equipment chain, a co-op, asked REI’s 70,000 co-op members and other consumers to vote with their feet and stay away from its stores.

The boycott began on May Day after the chain management failed to reach an agreement with the union by the deadline set by the RWDSU. The workers now plan to strike from May 15-25 against the chain, which likes to advertise itself as pro-worker and ecologically friendly. Those dates coincide with REI’s big anniversary sale.

The workers gained two new allies on April 28. One was a Congressional Labor Caucus letter, signed by 43 lawmakers, urging REI Board Chair Chris Carr to revoke its impasse declaration in their bargaining and come back to the table in good faith.

The other was an announcement by workers at REI’s big San Diego store that they’ve filed for a union recognition election, too. Key issues for the 119 workers who signed the letter to bosses are staffing, working hours, low pay, and questionable working conditions.

If they win, they’d be REI’s 12th store to unionize, but with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 135, San Diego media reported, rather than the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a semi-independent UFCW sector. RWDSU has organized REI’s flagship SoHo store and 10 others. 

The flurry of moves involving REI marks yet another instance of low-paid retail workers finally being fed up with small pay–especially in expensive cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Diego–and unfavorable working conditions.

But rather than quitting, those exploited workers, along with exploited port truck drivers, college lecturers, associate professors, grad student workers, and fast food workers, have turned to unionizing instead.

REI, which promotes itself as progressive, responded last year by cutting off bargaining when the two sides had almost reached a tentative contract, and hired one of anti-worker GOP President Donald Trump’s favorite union-busters, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, as its “consultant,” the REI Union/RWDSU says.

And even before then, Harvard University’s On Labor blog reports, the co-op had to settle National Labor Relations Board unfair labor practices charges of direct dealing, illegal threats, and illegal discipline of pro-union workers at its Berkeley, Calif., store. It also discriminated against unionists by refusing to pay them bonuses for working during the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawmakers told Carr they waited for more than a year for a reply to a prior letter, in January 2025, after REI cut off the talks—and after the firm was drowned in bad publicity during a prior strike. There was no response.

“We are concerned to hear from workers and constituents that…four years since the first union election, both parties appear no closer to reaching an agreement,” the Labor Caucus’s letter says. 

“The first contract offered by REI was voted down by 98.5% of participating voting union workers this past February, and the subsequent ‘last, best, and final offer’ failed to bridge the divide,” leading to REI’s impasse declaration.

“Impending cuts to worker benefits and starting hourly wages as a result of the impasse come at a time when workers are already struggling with rising costs and access to healthcare,” the lawmakers continued. “We also hear concerns regarding previous company restructuring, replacing experienced full-time employees with part-time and temporary employees.”

That’s not all, the REI union’s website says. It quotes REI as saying one of its six top goals for this year is to implement more use of artificial intelligence—thus taking away workers’ jobs, and through the monster data centers AI firms are building, becoming a prime source of greenhouse gases.

“In the end, the deal fell apart because the Co-op refused to offer REI Union workers wages on the same level as their co-workers at non-union stores,” the union team explained.

 “It wasn’t about money. They abandoned that progress because REI continues to be a fundamentally anti-union company. They wanted non-union workers to believe things are worse with a union.”

There have also been surveys revealing employment discrimination by race, and data showing the firm forces the part-timers to work more hours than before to become eligible for health care benefits. There’s also declining democracy in the co-op as management centralizes control.

REI’s “last, best and final offer,” implemented after the impasse, included “drastic cuts to starting wages, retirement, sick pay, vacation, leaves, and more.” The union now demands arbitration. 

“We’re running out of time to save REI from becoming the Wal-Mart of the outdoors,” the union website’s boycott page ends. 

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