The union representing hundreds of REI workers has a simple ask for the Issaquah, Washington-based co-op’s members: Vote no on board candidates.

REI members began voting last week on the outdoor gear retailer’s candidates for its board of directors. The election runs online through May 1.

The union, United Food and Commercial Workers Union, describes the candidates as cherry-picked during an opaque nominating process. Any REI member can self-nominate, but the board selects who will be on the ballot.

The clash is the latest in a contentious relationship between financially struggling REI and its unionized workers who have been trying to reach a contract since 2022. Other issues brought up by the union include pay, work safety and concerns over REI straying from its co-op values.

On its website, REI says board directors must have “exceptional judgment and decision-making skills honed by proven business acumen.” The co-op looks for candidates with “relevant experience operating businesses of similar size and scale to REI.”

REI didn’t respond to requests for comment.

As tensions rise between the union and the co-op, the former held a news conference in front of the Seattle flagship store last Monday urging members to vote “withhold” on all of the nominees.

REI’s current board has directors with decades of experience as executives for companies like Procter & Gamble, Starbucks and Exxon Mobil.

Board directors serve three-year terms. Nine people sit on the board in addition to the company’s CEO.

Two of the candidates are incumbents Liz Huebner and Michael McAfee, whose terms expire this year.

Huebner sits on the board of skin care brand Curology and was a chief financial officer for Getty Images more than two decades ago, according to her LinkedIn profile. McAfee is the CEO of PolicyLink, a national research institute. He also worked in for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to his LinkedIn profile.

A candidate for an open spot on the board is Monica Schwartz, an executive vice president and chief digital officer of BJ’s Wholesale Club. She also worked for years at Home Depot, Bank of America and eBay, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Huebner, McAfee and Schwartz didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Before the election, the union had a number of nominees in mind. Shemona Moreno, executive director of climate group 350 Seattle, was one of them. Moreno said the union called her last year and asked if she’d be interested in a campaign to run for a board position.

After she submitted her application and provided a petition showing the support of the union and members, Moreno said, she never heard back from REI.

“It’s been a pretty disappointing process trying to work with REI,” she said.

Moreno wasn’t included in the election. Another union pick, Tefere Gebre, chief program officer of Greenpeace USA, wasn’t on the ballot either.

“Tefere’s qualifications matched REI’s ideal board candidate, but the board rejected his nomination,” said Ben Smith, a senior adviser at Greenpeace. “It’s clear Tefere’s pro-union stance does not mesh with the increasingly corporatized board of this so-called co-op.”

Other union concerns

Eleven REI stores have voted to unionize since 2022. Workers at a store in Bellingham are represented by the Seattle local chapter of the UFCW; it is the only unionized location in Washington. Despite numerous bargaining sessions, the sides haven’t been able to hammer out a deal.

The union’s primary demands are higher wages, job protection, more staffing in stores and guaranteed minimum hours. Several employees said the reason they joined the union was to see a bump in pay to what they believed was a livable wage.

“I joined because it was really difficult seeing a lot of my co-workers run into each other at food banks,” said Tini Alexander, an REI employee at the Bellingham store. “Everyone’s having a hard time paying for rent and groceries.”

REI said during its 2022 annual report that it made the biggest investment to date into employee pay raises and benefits, the same year stores began unionizing. The co-op said it put an additional $50 million toward pay raises for hourly employees and delivered $92 million toward employee retirement and bonuses.

“Combined, that’s the largest single-year investment the co-op has ever made in employee compensation,” REI said in an April 2023 news release.

Megan Vandewalle, an REI employee at a Santa Cruz, California, store who spoke at the news conference last Monday, said in an interview that livable wages are at the top of her priorities but she also wants safety improvements for employees. During floods in Santa Cruz, she said, REI wouldn’t allow the store to close because the location sold emergency equipment.

Another safety concern is the removal of respirators from ski repair shops. Workers at an REI in New York City walked out on the job in December over concerns to chemical exposure during ski repair. The work requires melting wax and burning other materials. REI has said the ski shops have had air quality tests that confirm they’re safe environments that don’t require respirators.

Respirator use is voluntary in the shops but masks used to be supplied by the company.

Vandewalle and Iris Miller, an employee based in Chicago, said their stores have also been chronically understaffed. Sarah Cherin, chief of staff for UFCW 3000, said it’s been a problem for REI stores nationwide.

“If a customer walks in, they can answer for themselves, are they getting the kind of service that they used to get?” she said. “I think that’s underinvestment from the corporation making that decision.”

Corporatization

Employees and members have bemoaned what they view as REI straying from its co-op principles and instead acting as another corporate retailer.

After the company announced in early January that it was cutting its outdoor classes and events business, laying off more than 400 employees in the process, the union said it was “just more evidence that the company has moved away from its co-op roots.”

The events business, known as experiences, had never been profitable for REI. In a letter to employees, CEO Eric Artz said the retail side subsidized it, and any effort to make it profitable would have diverted resources away from physical and digital stores.

REI has been struggling for the past few years. After two years of posting losses, Artz said last year that the goal for 2024 was to break even in operating profit. He told The Seattle Times in January that the 2024 results weren’t final, but he believed REI was close to that goal.

“It’s a business decision to redeploy resources to our core business” Artz said in January.

Artz is stepping down at the end of the month. Mary Beth Laughton, a former REI board member and former Athleta CEO, will take over his role on March 31.

The message to employees in January said that funding arms of the company like the events business wasn’t sustainable. To survive, REI needed to focus on selling outdoor gear and apparel.

Margaret Cary, a Seattle resident who attended REI’s news conference last week, said she’s been a member since the early 1990s. She first joined because being a member of a co-op felt different to her and added community value to her shopping habits.

But that feeling has changed. Cary said she has seen a lack of commitment to the co-op values she signed up for and was particularly disappointed in how bargaining sessions have been handled.

“I come here maybe four or five times a year, usually before a hiking or skiing trip, to get my gear,” she said. “I want to see them stand up for the values this co-op was founded on.”

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