REI Workers Undeterred by Co-op’s Refusal to Let Union Candidates Run for Board

Union workers at REI continue to organize at the outdoor equipment retailer cooperative, undeterred by the co-op’s refusal to permit two union-backed candidates to run for member-elected co-op board seats.

As NPQ reported earlier this year, the REI Union backed two member-nominated candidates—Shemona Moreno, executive director of 350 Seattle, and Tefere Gebre, now chief program officer at Greenpeace USA—to the board at the nation’s largest cooperative. But neither name appeared on the ballot for the 2025 board election, which is open for online voting through May 1.

The co-op’s decision to exclude Moreno and Gebre from the member ballot is another twist in a protracted struggle for union representation. Since March 2022, over 600 workers have voted to unionize at 11 REI locations, in affiliation with either the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). But no store has secured a contract, and union-affiliated workers say the company is stalling on negotiations.

The REI Union’s support for [the board nominations of] Gebre and Moreno was, in part, a bet on the co-op idea itself.

The standoff has raised widespread ire in the co-op world. A petition organized by the Union Co-ops Council of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives and signed by more than 40 co-ops called REI’s approach a “betrayal of basic Co-op values.”

With its attempt to install pro-labor voices at the highest reaches of the company board blocked, the union is now turning to REI members across the country and even lawmakers in the company’s home state of Washington to disrupt business as usual in REI’s boardroom.

A Blocked Board Campaign

The REI Union’s support for Gebre and Moreno was, in part, a bet on the co-op idea itself. Each of REI’s 24 million members get a vote in the company’s annual board elections so long as they made a purchase worth $10 or became a new member the previous year. In theory, the system gives members a mechanism to influence the direction of the co-op. In practice, the elections have grown increasingly antidemocratic and opaque over the last two decades, workers and members say.

The board’s own Nominating and Governance Committee is responsible for deciding which candidates to put on the final member ballot. Bylaws also prevent REI employees from serving on the board and limit the number of nominees the board can put forward. Although REI membership is the only hard requirement for candidates, a 2025 nomination form obtained by NPQ showed the board was looking for tech-savvy brand executives, ideally those who have “led a company through several phases of hypergrowth.”

Neither Moreno nor Gebre fit that bill, but the company wasn’t quick to tell them that.

Union spokespeople say REI didn’t notify the candidates about their status after the board’s Nominating Committee convened in early February. And REI offered only a vague response to this account in a February statement to NPQ.

“The Board election site will go live on March 3, at which time the candidate slate will also be made public,” an REI spokesperson wrote. When the site went live, members didn’t see Gebre or Moreno in the list of three nominees.

Three Board Nominees for Three Seats

Instead, the board limited the number of nominees to three for the three open seats. This severely restricts member-owner democratic control. Two incumbent directors—Elizabeth Huebner, the former CFO of Getty Images, and Dr. Michael McAfee, the CEO of PolicyLink and the lone REI director who has spent most of his career in the nonprofit sector—were renominated. The only new nominee is Monica Schwartz, an e-commerce expert who currently serves as chief digital officer at BJ’s Wholesale Club. Schwartz could not be reached for comment, and current board members have not offered any public response.

Moreno says she found the whole process discouraging. REI claimed they never received her nomination form, she says, despite her having the screenshots to prove she submitted it. After that, she never heard from the co-op and had to piece together news about her own candidacy through either union allies or reporters.

“It’s pretty disrespectful,” Moreno tells NPQ. “They can send me a lot of ads, but, apparently, they can’t send me an email just saying, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”

Vote No

REI has not responded to a request for comment on the rationale behind rejecting Gebre and Moreno. But workers aren’t waiting to hear from the company. Instead, they’ve redoubled efforts to disrupt the ongoing board election.

The union is urging members to vote “withhold” on all three nominees. Per REI’s bylaws, a seat will remain vacant if any candidate receives more “withhold” votes than “for” votes, although even in that case the board can still unilaterally appoint a handpicked substitute to a one-year term (typical terms are three years).

Even if the workers fail to block any nominees, the “withhold” campaign offers the union a way to show the board, which has yet to comment publicly on the company’s labor negotiations, the depth of its membership support.

“They just put their cherry-picked corporate candidates on our ballot to vote up or down,” wrote Sarah Cherin, chief of staff at the 50,000-member Seattle-based UFCW 3000 local, in a statement. “Now is our chance to take back our co-op by rejecting their slate of corporate executive candidates.”

The union published a step-by-step guide to voting “withhold,” which is now pinned to the top of its Instagram feed and official website. And workers are trying to make their case to everyday members face-to-face, says Milo Barrett, an employee at the retailer’s flagship Manhattan store in SoHo.

The union ran a similar campaign last year. That campaign fell short, but Barrett says there’s a stronger, more indignant energy behind this year’s effort in light of the rejection of Gebre and Moreno—two candidates who offered strong labor and environmental credentials.

Legislative Action

As Moreno and Gebre waited in vain to hear from their own co-op, the union also took their board campaign from the shop floor to the state legislature.

In late January, Washington State Representative Cindy Ryu (D-32) introduced a bill (HB 1635) that would require Washington-based consumer co-ops with more than 2,500 employees to reserve at least two board seats for nonsupervisory workers.

The bill was clearly crafted with REI’s labor relations practices in mind. At a February hearing before Washington’s House Civil Rights & Judiciary Committee, where the bill remains, Seattle-based corporate attorney Michael Hutchings testified that REI was the only co-op that met the 2,500-employee threshold.

“When we interfere in labor organized by government fiat, it’s going to have a disastrous effect on the corporations,” Hutchings argued.

The union also took their board campaign from the shop floor to the state legislature.

But all other testimony thrashed REI, with Moreno, REI workers, and everyday REI members calling in remotely to support the bill.

“REI used to take workers’ experiences into account when making business decisions,” testified Anders Soderquist, an employee at the co-op’s flagship Seattle location. “I love REI, and I want to continue working at REI, and I want to see it move in a different direction.”

Seattle-based UFCW 3000 has organized the True Co-ops campaign to step up its legislative advocacy, lifting up the Washington grocery co-op PCC Community Markets as an example of more democratic co-op governance. UFCW represents 1,600 workers at the 15-store, 90,000-member co-op, where two employees have served as elected board members since winning election to the board in 2021.

REI itself, though, has so far remained mum about the bill, which would fundamentally reshape its governance structure. But should the proposal move to the House floor and eventually into the Senate, the stakes would certainly rise.

The co-op’s modus operandi in its dispute with the union has generally been to go quietly about its business. But with workers getting more creative and more forceful, REI may soon have no choice but to respond.