REI union organizersvoted Wednesday night to form the company’s first union in the country, organizers announced on Twitter.
Eighty-eight of the store’s 102 employees voted to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, an REI spokesperson confirmed. Fourteen employees voted not to join the union. “We know we will be able to harness our collective strength to advocate for a more equitable, safe, and enriching work environment,” said Claire Chang, a retail sales specialist and union organizer at the store. “We're hopeful that REI meets us in good faith during negotiations for our first contract, while keeping our co-op values in mind and applying them to workers, so we can all demonstrate that we really do go further.
Organizers said they wanted to address workplace safety and training concerns, scheduling and vacation time through unionization effortsand other perks. But organizers said they’d faced resistance from REI corporate leadership about workers forming a cooperative of their own.