FILE — A would-be buyer arrives at a closed REI retailer within the SoHo neighborhood of New York, Nov. 26, 2015. Staff at an REI retailer in Manhattan filed for a union election on Friday, Jan. 21, 2022, making the outside tools and attire retailer the newest outstanding service-industry employer whose staff have sought to unionize. (Christian Hansen/The New York Occasions)
NEW YORK — Staff at an REI retailer in Manhattan filed for a union election Friday, making the outside tools and attire retailer the newest outstanding service-industry employer whose staff have sought to unionize.
Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, rejected a union in an election final yr, although the Nationwide Labor Relations Board later threw out the consequence, citing improprieties on the a part of the corporate, and ordered a brand new election to start subsequent month.
In December, staff at two Starbucks shops in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize, making them the one company-owned Starbucks places within the nation with a union. Staff at about 20 different Starbucks have since filed for union elections.
The submitting on the REI retailer in SoHo requested the labor board for an election involving about 115 workers, who're looking for to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Division Retailer Union, the identical union that has overseen the union marketing campaign on the Amazon warehouse in Alabama.
Along with submitting for the election, the REI workers have requested for voluntary recognition of their union, which might make a vote pointless.
Like Starbucks, REI, a client cooperative made up of shoppers who purchase lifetime memberships for $20, cultivates a progressive picture. REI’s web site says that the cooperative believes in “placing function earlier than income” and that it invests greater than 70% of its income “again into the outside neighborhood” by means of initiatives like dividends to members and worker profit-sharing.
Because the starting of the pandemic, some REI workers have criticized the retailer over what they are saying are inadequate security protocols, together with an absence of transparency over which workers have examined constructive for COVID and a call to loosen up its masking coverage. The retailer has stated that it follows related steerage from state and federal well being authorities, but it surely has adjusted some insurance policies because it confronted criticism.
Responding to the union marketing campaign in Manhattan, REI stated: “We respect the rights of our workers to talk and act for what they imagine — and that features the rights of workers to decide on or refuse union illustration. Nonetheless, we don't imagine inserting a union between the co-op and its workers is required or useful.”
This text initially appeared in The New York Occasions.