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Workers at the REI location in New York City’s SOHO neighborhood voted to unionize last Tuesday after employees complained about poor treatment, little pay, and the lack of career advancements.
The company said in a statement after the vote that it believes the decision on whether or not to be represented by a union is an important one “and we respect each employee’s right to choose or refuse union representation,” according to The New York Times.
Majority Rule
The vote was 88 to 14.
Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said that the employees are ready to negotiate a “strong contract that will allow them to “uphold the co-op’s progressive values while providing the top-notch service REI customers have come to expect.”
Last month, the Trends Journal ran an article titled, “REI: UNIONIZATION TREND EXPANDS AS FORECAST,” and pointed out that workers took issue with the work environment and pay. Kate Dedend, a worker at the location, told Motherboard that the company—which bills itself as progressive—has employees that don’t make a living wage:
“Why do you have to work 40 hours a week for 12 months to get health benefits? Why is there no guarantee of hours after the holiday season? These are very basic things that [REI] has gotten away with not doing, despite this facade of being a progressive, liberal company.”
The Times pointed out that the chain has 170 stores and 15,000 employees nationwide. The average age of employees is 37, which the paper said is five years younger than the median age of all U.S. workers.
John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University, told the Times that REI seems to be another example of “predominantly young workers who are not buying the arguments about unions being special interest groups.”
The Trends Journal has also pointed out that another result of the outbreak was that the rich got richer and the poor keep getting poorer; 37.2 million Americans are living in poverty in the U.S., which marks a 3.3 million jump since 2019. (See “$4 TRILLION FOR BILLIONAIRES AS MIDDLE-CLASS SHRINKS” and “COVID WAR: RICH GOT RICHER, POOR GOT POORER.”)
TREND FORECAST: Again, this is old news for Trends Journal subscribers. One of our Top Trends for 2022 is “Unionization.” (See “LABOR UNION COMEBACK,” 30 Nov 2021.)
And, the deeper economies fall, the stronger the unionization trend will grow.