Staff at an REI retailer in New York Metropolis voted to unionize on Wednesday, creating the one union on the outdoor-equipment and attire retailer. The vote, which occurred on the retailer, was 88 to 14.
The balloting, within the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, adopted a string of unionization efforts at high-profile employers within the service trade. Staff at three Starbucks shops have voted to unionize since early December, creating the one union at shops owned by the corporate. Staff at two Amazon warehouses will end voting in union elections on the finish of the month.
REI, with about 170 shops and 15,000 staff nationwide, is a cooperative owned by prospects who purchase lifetime memberships, presently $30, and types itself as a progressive firm, within the vein of Starbucks. Its web site says that the cooperative believes in “placing goal earlier than earnings” and that it invests greater than 70 p.c of its earnings in “the out of doors group,” together with contributions to nonprofit organizations.
“The employees of REI SoHo are prepared to barter a robust contract that can enable them to uphold the co-op’s progressive values whereas offering the top-notch service REI prospects have come to anticipate,” mentioned a press release from Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Division Retailer Union, which helped arrange the employees.
After the vote, the corporate mentioned in a press release, “As we’ve mentioned all through this course of, REI firmly believes that the choice of whether or not or to not be represented by a union is a crucial one, and we respect every worker’s proper to decide on or refuse union illustration.”
John Logan, a professor of labor research at San Francisco State College, mentioned that like Starbucks, REI attracts employees who seem to have an ideological affinity for unions past the potential sensible advantages, like a rise in wages.
“REI looks like one other instance of predominantly younger employees who should not shopping for the arguments about unions being special-interest teams,” Mr. Logan mentioned in an e mail.
The corporate put the common age of its employees at 37, about 5 years youthful than the median age of all U.S. employees.
Staff on the retailer started to arrange within the fall of 2020, partly as a result of many felt that staff who had been outspoken in elevating Covid-related security considerations weren’t allowed to return after REI quickly closed its shops that yr. An election petition was filed 5 weeks in the past.
In a video convention with reporters final week convened by the retail employees union, Claire Chang, a visible presentation specialist who has labored on the retailer for over 4 years, additionally cited considerations about coronavirus security.
Ms. Chang mentioned that after the shop reopened in 2020, managers requested employees how snug they’d really feel about reopening the becoming rooms, the place staff are in frequent contact with attire worn by prospects.
“The vast majority of workers, if not all people on workers, mentioned that they weren’t snug with that, and so they nonetheless went forward and did it,” Ms. Chang mentioned.
Steve Buckley, a gross sales specialist who has been on the retailer for about six months, mentioned within the video convention that he was one in all a number of employees who had change into contaminated with the coronavirus through the Omicron surge, whereas the shop was crowded with prospects.
An REI spokeswoman mentioned that the retailer had let go fewer than 5 p.c of its employees nationwide upon reopening and that the choices had nothing to do with how outspoken staff had been. She mentioned that becoming rooms had been outfitted with sanitizing provides and that the shop had restricted capability all through the pandemic.
She cited a 2021 survey displaying that staff usually rated the corporate extremely on questions like whether or not it handled them as valued staff.
A number of employees mentioned that they had sought to unionize due to a niche they perceived between REI’s conduct and its said values, asserting that the office had change into extra impersonal and profit-focused because it sought to develop.
“There was an enormous push to promote memberships,” Graham Gale, an worker concerned within the organizing, mentioned in a textual content message to a reporter in January.
The employees additionally mentioned REI had waged an aggressive anti-union marketing campaign, flying in firm officers to carry conferences with staff concerning the dangers of unionizing and hanging materials in break rooms and creating an internet site that highlighted these dangers.
Mr. Buckley mentioned a gathering he attended with senior officers in February lasted roughly two hours and touched on points like medical health insurance. The officers had been “brazenly yelling at us that we had been improper about primary insurance policies at our retailer and primary circumstances that we face,” he mentioned. “How is {that a} respectful surroundings?” The corporate presents medical health insurance to employees who common a minimum of 20 hours per week after one yr.
The spokeswoman mentioned that the corporate had sought to share details about unions, and that the February assembly was a long-scheduled coaching session for the relaunching of the corporate’s membership program.
Mr. Logan, the labor research professor, mentioned one purpose REI’s efforts to dissuade employees from unionizing, like Starbucks’s, won’t have been efficient was that the shops had been usually not top-heavy with supervisors.
“They function comparatively autonomously, with little managerial presence or oversight, thus offering ample alternative to speak union,” Mr. Logan mentioned. “After they do that, anti-union propaganda turns into much less efficient — their minds are made up.”