REI views climate change as “an existential threat to life outside” and has set a goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 47% by 2030. It has also publicly committed to becoming a “fully inclusive, anti-racist, multicultural organization” and maintains a factory code of conduct for sourcing products based on standards set by the International Labour Organization. The code includes a stipulation on collective bargaining that requires suppliers to “recognize and respect the legal rights of employees to free association.
I’m generally in favor of coops but consumer coops as opposed to fully worker-owned coops are… basically just normal businesses owned by groups of consumers. Even worker coops under capitalism are still beholden to market imperatives and run the risk of developing managerialist tendencies, but at least it’s worker-owned and self-managed.
REI’s long been a poster child of pseudo-liberal, anti-worker cooperativism, as absurd and disgusting as it is to type that out, but here we are.
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