REI Co-op should be renamed REI Clique

REI is an oligarchy as the "co-op" with a theoritical 25 million members has been confiscated by an oligarchy of 9 self appointed, unaccountable board members, plus the CEO chosen by said board, so that's 10 people, a small clique, a simple synonym for oligarchy.

This oligarchy took control of REI in ther early 2000s and has ben able to keep all the power to itself, its most recent manoeuver consisting of amending the bylaws to bypass the obligation of facing an election by the membership, a response to the 2025 election defeat. At this point there has been no legal challenge to this change allowing the board of directors to coopt new board members without having them to be 'certified' by a positive vote of the membership at the next annual election. That should have been this January 2026. How will the clique fare? We'll know in 2 days. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How the REI-Union made a deal with the REI Board of Directors to stop getting involved in the 2026 election!! and left thousands members in the cold :(

Image
  The answer is posted on the REI-Union Facebook page  published on December 26, reproduced below. What a shame :( Same message posted on instagram,   twitter , but not on their main site. Apparently not posted on tiktok . abd REI-Union answer is Yeah, shame on you. Can you give us the details of the "agreement we reached with REI in september" and you kept secret? What did you get in exchange of this betrayal of all the members who trusted you were into making the board accountable? Who were the Union reps who agreed to such a deal? Shame on you, whomever you are. Progressive members of the Coop you have misled by leaving them in the dark now have 26 days, until February first to show the oligarchic REI board of directors they will again be defeated and then insist that the bylaws that installed this completely corrupted system be abolished. Interestingly they posted the info on their socials but not on their website, only glorifying with the same arcane language the "...
Read more

A selection of articles and links providing background and context

Image
  Who owns REI June 18, 2003, Reddit, Andy Ryan  REI workers test the retailer's co-op identity  January 30, 2025, The Huffington Post, Dave Jamieson  Local organizer wants to fix REI from the top and REI is fighting to keep her off the ballot  January 31, 2025, The Stranger, Connor Kelley WA bill would force REI CO-OP to reserve board seats for workers  February 14, 2025 by Nate Sanford  REI Co-op members reject company board picks after union campaign May 8, 2025 Cascade PBS, Excellent article by Nate Sanford  REI members block leadership picks to lead struggling co-op's future May 8, 2025 by Dave Jamieson in the Huffington Post  REI members reject handpicked candidates by the Board of Directors  May 9, 2025, Seattle Times by Alex Halverson REI member sues COOP over refusal to release election information June 17, 2025, Cascade PBS, Another excellent article by Nate Sanford  REI appoints new board directors after contentious sprin...
Read more