Local organizer wants to fix REI from the top—and REI is fighting to keep her off the ballot

REI is having an identity crisis. Originally formed as a co-op in 1938, it earned a strong reputation in our community for its commitment to environmental issues, fair treatment of workers, and climate education initiatives. These values fostered generations of loyal customers who felt good about supporting the company.

But over the past few years, REI has appointed a decidedly corporate-leaning board of directors, with former executives from Exxon Mobil, Starbucks, and McKinsey. Employees identify this shift as the start of anti-worker treatment at the company, like unpredictable scheduling and waves of layoffs, which the company attributes to slow sales.

And while it’s true that REI’s finances have fluctuated in recent years, reports of its financial death are greatly exaggerated. In 2020, in the first year of COVID-19, the company sold its newly completed Bellevue headquarters to Meta for $390 million. And then when people took to the outdoors for safe exercise, REI’s sales boomed: up 37% in 2021 to a total of $3.7 billion, reporting a $97.7 million profit.

REI reported a slight uptick to $3.8 billion in revenue in 2022 and $3.76 billion in 2023, but somehow still managed to lose millions in both years. That mismanagement at the top has resulted in repeated waves of layoffs: 167 people were laid off in 2023, then 357 in 2024, and 428 more this month, shuttering its beloved outdoor education Experiences arm.

In 2022, REI’s New York City SoHo location was the first of its 187 stores to unionize. Nine others, including their Bellingham store, have since followed suit. REI has refused to negotiate a contract with the REI Union for over two years now and retained Morgan Lewis, a notorious union-busting law firm that also represents Amazon and SpaceX, and previously counted Donald Trump as a client. This week, 63 lawmakers including Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to REI urging them to bargain fairly with their workers and stop their union-busting activity.

CEO Eric Artz announced his retirement last week, with new CEO Mary Beth Laughton taking over on February 3. She inherits a company with shaky finances and a once-sterling public image that has suffered in recent years.

REI claims they have a transparent and democratic process for their annual board elections, yet candidates must be approved by the current board to even appear on the ballot to be voted on by its members. Workers are currently ineligible to run for the board, as well. However, Shemona Moreno, a local climate activist, longtime REI member, and REI Union-endorsed candidate, is running to hopefully steer REI back to its roots.

The current board will decide which candidates will be allowed on the ballot at their meeting on Monday, February 3.

You’re running to help return REI to its roots. Can you introduce yourself to folks who don’t already know about what you do?

Shemona Moreno:
I’m the executive director at 350 Seattle. We’re a local grassroots non-profit focused on climate justice and the intersections of climate and workers’ rights, abolition, and a variety of issues because we believe we can’t solve our climate crisis in a silo.

I’ve been with 350 Seattle since right after Trump was elected the first time. I was a nanny at the time. That was an activating moment for me to move from supporting from the sidelines to becoming more of a participant in my community and learning how to be an activist. So I started off as a volunteer with 350 Seattle, and then I had the opportunity to join the staff in 2018. I became executive director two years ago, and am starting my third year as ED now.

I wouldn’t say I’ve always been a climate activist, but it’s something I grew into. My mother was really into activism, specifically around racial justice issues and police accountability, so I grew up going to actions and action-planning meetings with my mom. And here I am now doing similar work, working with people who care about what our future is going to look like. The question is: how are we thriving in our future and not just surviving?

What are some projects you’ve worked on with 350 Seattle that you’re proud of?

Around 2018 when the Green New Deal came onto the scene, we made a bit of a pivot at 350 Seattle to be focused more on solutions that will replace a lot of this infrastructure that we’re trying to dismantle. We still need water. We still need food. So how are we doing that sustainably? What are the solutions that work with the community instead of against it?

We ran a campaign called Solar Schools, working with other unions like the Seattle Education Association and MLK Labor to take levy money and invest it in renewable energy. We felt strongly we should be putting solar panels on top of our schools, and provide heating, cooling, and air filtration to all of our schools to keep our kids safe. We won that, and those projects are now underway.

Another campaign we ran and won was called Healthy Through Heat and Smoke, which was another levy fight. We pushed Seattle Parks to invest in proper heating and cooling because out of the 26 community centers in Seattle, only three or four of them have air conditioning. In the 2021 heat dome, people died because they didn’t have anywhere to go.

What’s the pitch for your candidacy? What separates you from REI’s current board members?

I’m a voice for the people who do not have representation on that board. I’m a voice for the workers. I’m also a voice for the people who actually care about preserving the planet, the air, and the water, and the considerations that’s going to take.

As you look at these issues that are confronting REI, what’s your vision for what REI could be?

What is REI now? What are they doing? And who are they aligning themselves to? We’re seeing them get rid of a lot of the things that support the members and the workers. We just saw a bunch of layoffs. So what’s next? What else is REI going to compromise on for the sake of making money for a few people?

I think we could learn a lot from the workers who actually speak to the consumers at brick and mortar stores. The members have good ideas. There’s value there. I think you could do an audit and ask, what do people want from REI? And not just people who have lots of money, but regular people who could say, ‘I would go there a lot more if it was accessible to me in this way.’

People are now thinking carefully about how they spend their money. Does REI want to be one of those companies that’s put on a boycott list? Or do they want to be one of the companies that’s celebrated? We could have a company here that’s thinking about us, that cares about the issues that we care about. And right now, it seems like REI does not.

Do you have any comment on the news that REI is canceling its Experiences arm? Is this the kind of thing you would support if you were on the board?

When I first joined REI as a member, I did some of the Experiences before I bought anything. I was just getting into hiking and learned about different tools, how to keep myself safe, what are the things that I need to know when I start journeying out into the wild to make sure I’m doing it respectfully.

I think those Experiences set REI apart from its competitors for me. So this news is a bummer. I’m curious what led to that decision. It seems like the capitalist mindset of ‘it wasn’t making money, therefore, it wasn’t useful.’ But do we always have to be thinking about whether or not something is making money? Is that a good metric of real value?

With over 3,000 members supporting your candidacy and lawmakers urging REI to listen to their workers, do you see this as a mandate for your board seat?

It is a clear mandate. I believe 100 percent that things need to change. At the very least, we should change the way the co-op board operates. There should be representation from workers. It’s not hard! We saw PCC do it and PCC is still around. It didn’t implode by adding two workers’ voices onto that board.

Another place we can start is bargaining with the union in good faith. Listening to your workers around safety issues and things that need to be fixed, that is also not an impossible task. You’ll probably spend less money on it than you would paying the union-busting firm that’s represented the likes of Amazon and Trump. Like, come on. Do you really want to align yourself with them? What does success look like for this company if they’re going to continue to alienate their base?

REI is now claiming they never received your application for the board election. But you’ve shown me screenshots of your submission, sent ahead of the deadline. What gives?

I emailed my application before the deadline. The best case scenario is someone didn’t check their spam folder. The worst case scenario is REI is afraid of a pro-staff candidate for Board. This is not the REI I know and love. I applied to run for the board to be a voice for the people in green vests who make REI great but who are not allowed a voice on the co-op’s board of directors. More than 3,000 REI members and customers signed a petition in support of my candidacy for the board to bring REI back to its roots, and ensure the company walks their talk on sustainability and worker rights. REI must listen to its member-owners.

So where does this go from here? If REI rejects your candidacy, are you planning to run again?

There’s a bill in the Washington State Legislature that would require Washington businesses designated as a
co-op to include employees on the board
and follow a transparent democratic process for elections. I personally rally readers to support that bill. Contact your legislators and make sure they’re hearing all of our voices across Washington State in support of that bill.

That’s a good next step if I don’t make it onto the board. And I’m open to running again if that is something workers in the union would like of me. But this isn’t all about me. It’s about the workers at REI and the union. I’m just an ally, and this is how I can be in support of the union and the workers, by following their lead. I would surely do it again.

We have to stand up and hold them accountable because at the end of the day, they’re making all this money, but we’re the people who actually buy things. We’re the people that work.

They can’t do this without us. They need us.