A group of members of Triad Workers Assembly picketed and leafleted for several hours on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 20 at the Friendly Center mall in Greensboro in support of the 10-day national union boycott of the retail store REI called by the REI Union.
Workers at Greensboro’s REI store, located in the Friendly Center, voted in a government labor board election to join the union in January 2025. The REI Union includes workers at 11 unionized stores across the country. The workers have been bargaining to win a first contract with the company since 2022. Despite REI’s formal status as being a co-op and the company’s efforts to brand itself as being progressive, REI management has engaged in a vicious campaign of union busting, spending a fortune to employ lawyers from the notorious “union-avoidance” law firm Morgan Lewis.
As noted in a May 15 press release by the REI Union and the UFCW, “Workers at REI’s 11 unionized stores are asking shoppers not to shop [during the company’s Anniversary Sale] as a show of solidarity with green vests in the face of four years of bad faith contract negotiations and REI’s scorched-earth union-busting campaign.”
The boycott will last from May 15 to May 25. We urge all union members and supporters and people of good will to honor this boycott across the country and help get the word out to support the REI Union.
Solidarity with the workers at REI and their struggle for union justice and a better life for their families!
