After an ongoing journey, the vote on whether to unionize REI Soho will take place in person on March 2, with results to be announced shortly thereafter.
In the filing submitted last month to the National Labor Relations Board, 116 REI SoHo employees expressed interest in formal union election and recognition.
Initial organizing efforts began in earnest two years ago at the onset of the pandemic after employees cited, “changes in the company [values]” that continued post-lockdown, according to Claire Chang, a union organizing member and visual retail sales specialist who has been with the outdoor gear company four years.
Concerns include staff layoffs, unenforced mask policies and other issues expressed in a virtual media briefing held Wednesday by REI SoHo union organizers and the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, a representing organization. Employees are challenging inflexible policies while bargaining for better wages, flexible scheduling and improved workplace safety and training.
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Organizers cited an influx of daily “antiunion messaging,” including posters in the REI SoHo break room, a micro-site, binders and meetings with outsourced executives extending late into the night.
According to Tyler Mulholland, a sales lead at REI SoHo who has been with the company four years, employees are challenging such policies as a three-minute grace period for late clock-ins or, as Mulholland called it, a “disgrace” period.
“It becomes a metric they use to discipline you,” he said, or a means of “intimidation or control.”
Speaking to the nature of the captive audience meeting, retail sales specialist Steve Buckley said, “Me and Tyler [Mulholland] were both in one that went until 10:30 at night with numerous executive-level positions, not just our store managers, openly yelling at us that we are wrong about basic policies at our store and basic conditions that we face. They were, like, ‘That’s not a real thing, that doesn’t even exist.’ How is that a respectful environment when we didn’t eat that night and we’re just yelled at by executive-level people in our company?
It’s disappointing as someone who loves the co-op and genuinely believes in what we do. I love my job. I don’t love when an HR person corners me in the fitting room and gets into an argument with me for 45 minutes, which happened on a busy Sunday, two days ago. This is not a productive place to have this conversation, but they’re not really engaging in a productive manner. They want us to feel uncomfortable and surveilled and pressured.”
Citing newfound awareness regarding issues at REI, Buckley said, “Win, lose or draw, I think we’re going to win this election hands down. It’s so beautiful to watch all of my coworkers own their power as workers and own their identity as someone who wants to make this store successful.”
While not addressing specific claims from organizers on antiunion messaging, REI Co-Op said in a statement to WWD: “We are aware that mischaracterizations and misinformation about REI have been shared. As we have always stated, our intention is to ensure we are transparently sharing the facts about unions and the labor campaign process, while doing so in good faith and with respect to legal requirements.”
The company reaffirmed its commitment to its people, again acknowledging the “rights of employees to choose or refuse union representation.” “REI is not antiunion, and we believe that unions play an important role in the rights of workers, and in workplaces or companies where employees do not have a voice.”