When Shemona Moreno signed up to be an REI co-op member in 2016, she wasn’t thinking about boardroom politics, bylaws and labor disputes. She just needed new hiking boots.
“I wasn’t even thinking about it being a co-op and whatever that means for a large company,” Moreno said.
Moreno later realized that REI’s $30 lifetime membership is about more than just discounts on gear. The Washington-based outdoor retailer is structured as a consumer cooperative. That means REI members are also partial owners of the company. They get a vote in board of director elections and — in theory — have a say over REI’s direction and values.
It all sounds democratic, but in recent years, Moreno and other critics of the company argue that REI has strayed from its co-op roots and put profits over people. Last fall, with backing from unionized employees, Moreno launched an outsider campaign to join the company’s board of directors in a long-shot bid to change the company’s approach to labor issues from the inside.
“Our co-op’s founders would be shocked that today’s REI is union busting against workers just for asking for better conditions,” Moreno says in a campaign ad funded by the union.
Moreno is an outspoken labor advocate who also leads the climate justice nonprofit 350 Seattle. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 3000, which represents employees at the Bellingham store, recruited Moreno to run for a three-year term because REI employees themselves aren’t allowed to serve on the company’s nine-person elected board — a restriction that union members say leaves them without a voice.
In addition to Moreno’s campaign, the union is also backing a proposed bill in Olympia that would require large Washington co-ops to set aside at least two board seats for employees. A sister union representing REI workers at other stores recruited another pro-labor candidate, Tefere Gebre, who is the chief program officer at Greenpeace and former AFL-CIO executive vice president, to nominate himself.
The push for board representation reflects a new strategy from unionized REI employees, who are still struggling to secure a first contract. Eleven stores have voted to unionize since 2022 amid a wave of post-pandemic retail organizing activity. It’s been a contentious battle, and REI union members have accused the company of dragging its feet and retaliating against workers interested in unionizing, a claim the company denies. REI is currently represented in union negotiations by Morgan Lewis, a law firm that is arguing on behalf of SpaceX that the National Labor Relations Board itself is unconstitutional.
Moreno said she thinks REI is failing to live up to its progressive reputation.
“I was just like, dang, not another one,” Moreno said. “Not another company that I thought was walking the talk, was doing all the right things. Of course they’re not.”
The REI store in Bellingham is the only Washington store that’s voted to unionize. The other 10 stores are in other states. Workers in Greensboro, North Carolina, became the latest to unionize earlier this week.
“As we’ve been negotiating with this company, I think one of the things we’ve come to learn is just how far they’ve fallen from their co-op roots 90 years ago,” said Joe Mizrahi, secretary-treasurer of UFCW 3000.
Mizrahi said Moreno’s campaign is an opportunity to raise awareness about REI’s approach to labor issues. If she’s allowed on the ballot — and that’s a big if — he thinks members would turn out to support her.
“REI members, the people who shop at REI, I think that they care about social justice, they care about environmental justice, they care about workers rights,” Mizrahi said. “I think she’s the exact candidate they would want with this position.”
It’s not uncommon for unions to run pro-labor candidates for public sector positions — on hospital boards, for example — but REI’s unique position as a large co-op retailer with member elections makes it possible to run a pro-labor board campaign in a way that wouldn’t necessarily be possible at a private company, Mizrahi said.
“The REI process isn’t fair right now, but it has an election process,” Mizrahi said. “It has an election process that actually provides a unique opportunity that doesn’t exist at a lot of other employers.”
Nominating process
Ballots for this year’s election will be mailed to REI members this spring, but it’s unlikely that Moreno’s name will be on them. The company maintains that it did not receive her application, though Moreno and UFCW 3000 say they have proof that she sent her materials.
Any REI member used to be able to appear on the ballot if they gathered enough signatures, but by 2005, the board had updated its bylaws so that only candidates approved by the board’s nominating committee could appear on the ballot. Members vote on candidates chosen by the board after an application process. Seats are rotated, so REI members get ballots every year.
Union workers say the process has become insular and undemocratic. Last year, they urged REI members to vote for the option “withhold” in protest of the candidates the board put before them.
Courtney Berner studies co-op governance as the executive director of the University of Wisconsin Madison’s Center for Cooperatives. She’s a member of at least five co-ops herself. She votes in elections at almost all of them — with the exception of REI.
“I haven’t voted in the REI elections because, for a number of years now, they’ve just provided a slate of candidates,” Berner said. “I mean, your ballot basically doesn’t matter because it’s not a contested election.”
Berner said democratic member control is “baked into the cooperative model,” and that many consumer co-ops have open election processes. That’s not the case at REI.
“It’s not just that the nominating committee is dictating who can be on the ballot,” Berner said. “They’re proposing a slate — an uncontested slate.”
The REI board is scheduled to meet on Monday Feb. 3 to determine who will be allowed on this year’s ballot — but Moreno might not even get that far.
When Cascade PBS and KNKX reached out to the REI board for comment on this story, a spokesperson said in an email that Moreno “did not submit an official application for Board service.”
“Given the fact we have no record of a formal application, she will not be considered for Board service,” the REI spokesperson said.
Moreno was surprised to hear that. She only learned that REI had not received her application about a week and a half ago after reporters asked her about it.
Members interested in running were supposed to email an application form to the board no later than Oct. 10. Moreno shared screenshots with Cascade PBS and KNKX that appear to show that, at 8:08 a.m. on Oct. 10, Moreno sent an email to the board with the subject line “Letter for REI board nomination” and a PDF of her application material.
When Cascade PBS and KNKX followed up with REI about the screenshot, a spokesperson, who did not identify themselves, insisted the company had “no record of Shemona’s email.”
“The deadline has passed, and we are unable to consider additional candidates at this time,” the spokesperson said.
REI declined to make board members available for interviews for this story, and a spokesperson didn’t respond to a detailed list of follow up questions.
Mizrahi said UFCW 3000 is confident they have proof that Shemona did, in fact, submit her application on time. He said the union is still tracking down “all the legal options” and continuing to pressure the board to put Shemona on the ballot. They have a petition with signatures from more than 3,000 members urging the board to include her.
“The best case scenario is that they are not checking their inbox and they’re punishing our candidate because of it,” Mizrahi said. “The worst case scenario is that they’re dishonestly preventing her from being on the ballot.”
Moreno doesn’t think her application got lost in a spam folder.
“As soon as I started reading about all the other board members, I knew it was probably unlikely that they would even let me be on the nomination slate,” Moreno said. “They’d find some way to keep me from doing it.”
The REI spokesperson confirmed that they did receive an application from Gebre, the other union-backed candidate.
“All self-nominated candidates are considered during the selection process,” the spokesperson said.

Co-op or corporate?
Even if her application hadn’t disappeared, Moreno’s chances of making it past the REI board nominating committee were low. The “expected experience” section of the board’s nominating criteria lists an explicit preference for applicants who have experience managing large billion-dollar businesses.
“We look for candidates with proven business acumen and relevant experience operating in organizations of similar size and scale to REI,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding that the board also looks for people who have a “demonstrated history of innovation and disruption, particularly in the retail industry.”
Today’s REI board is largely composed of high-level executives, including people who’ve worked at companies like Exxon Mobil, McKinsey Consulting, Starbucks and United Airlines. It’s a departure from earlier decades, when the REI board included a local bike shop owner, a mountaineer and other local outdoor enthusiasts.
REI members have long fretted about the company’s drift away from its scrappy roots. In the 1990s, members clashed over a proposal to raise board members’ salaries, which were then set at less than $4,000. (They make $125,000 today.) REI has grown to include 24 million members, 15,000 employees and nearly 200 stores. It did $3.76 billion in sales in 2023.
“I remember it being a really grounds-up co-op,” Washington state Rep. Cindy Ryu, a Democrat from Shoreline who was an REI member in the 1970s. “Now their customer base is much bigger. … it seems to operate much more like a regular corporation.”
REI’s evolution into a retail giant is also reflected in member participation. In 2003, Seattle Weekly reported that turnout in board elections had dropped from 14% in 1980 to 2.8% that year. By 2016, The Seattle Times was reporting that less than 1% of members had cast ballots. The company didn’t respond to a request for current turnout numbers.
Berner, the co-op expert at University of Wisconsin Madison, said it’s not unusual for growing co-ops to struggle to balance the need for business expertise with representation for members and employees. She compares it to splitting up a pie.
“REI has cut a really large slice for expertise, and the kind of expertise they think they want on their board,” Berner said. “And the cost of that is it starts to not feel like members are represented.”
Ryu thinks employees need a bigger slice of the pie. This week, she introduced a bill requested by the union that would require large Washington-based co-ops to set aside at least two board seats for employees. The bill would apply to any co-op with more than 2,500 employees, but Ryu acknowledges that it’s “directed at REI.”
“I would hope this bill is not necessarily a punitive measure, but rather ‘Hey, remember your roots, remember your employees,’” Ryu said. “It’s really important for any business model to have those ears on the ground.”
Ryu noted that some local co-ops already have employee representation on their boards. She pointed to PCC, a local grocery co-op, which currently has two unionized employees on its board of directors. Those employees were elected to the company’s board in 2021 as part of a campaign led by UFCW 3000 to increase union representation at the store.
The union accused PCC management of resisting the employee’s candidacy. As with REI, existing PCC board members expressed a desire for candidates with more high-level business experience. The PCC board recommended several candidates with business backgrounds — including two former REI executives.
The union workers ended up defeating the co-op backed candidates after an extensive signature-gathering campaign. PCC’s bylaws said any member can run for the board, but non-board-endorsed candidates needed signatures from 2% of all members.
Mizrahi, with UFCW 3000, thinks having worker representation has been helpful for PCC — as a business and an employer. The campaign also showed that it is possible to convince co-op members to submit their ballots and vote for pro-labor candidates, he said.
Moreno recalls helping promote the PCC campaign in her role with 350 Seattle.
“That was also an eye-opening experience of like, ‘Oh my god, this is a co-op, we’re members, we have power,” Moreno said. “That’s why I’m like ‘Oh yeah, let’s do this again.’ But I am shocked by how much resistance REI is putting up.”
Moreno said she knew her chances were slim when she agreed to run. She doesn’t think she’ll make it on the ballot, but if she does get a seat, she said she’s ready to serve.
“If by some miracle they let me on the board, then my job from then on will be to ensure the company walks their talk on sustainability and workers rights,” Moreno said.
REI has struggled with profitability in recent years. Earlier this year, the company announced the layoff of more than 400 employees. REI announced last week that CEO Eric Artz was stepping down and that Mary Beth Laughton, a former Nike executive, would be taking over to lead the company.
Moreno said she recognizes that REI is a business that needs to make money, but she thinks it's possible for the company to thrive while still staying true to its cooperative roots. Growing as a co-op always comes with trade-offs, Berner, the researcher, said, but that doesn’t mean REI’s current approach is the only way.
“I understand strategically, in some ways, why REI has made some of the choices they have around their governance,” Berner said. “But at the end of the day, if you push it too far, members will probably push back.”
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