By james art 
By Nate Sanford / Murrow News
Some Democrats in Olympia believe that employees should have more representation on the Board of Directors of Rei.
House bill 1635Sponsored by State reporter Cindy Ryu, a Democrat from Shoreline, will require any consumer cooperative based in Washington, with more than 2500 employees to book two seats on the board of directors of the people working in the cooperative.
The bill does not mention Rei by name, but in an interview with Cascade PBS and KNKX last month, RYU admitted that the bill was aimed at the retail company outdoors. She was not aware of other cooperatives in Washington to which she would be applied. (PCC, a large local grocery cooperative, has about 1,800 employees, according to the financial report for 2024)
The joined workers at the Rei store in Belingham asked the bill. The Bellingham store is one of 11 Rei stores across the country that have voted for merging since 2022. None of the unions has reached a contract with the company.
Rei members vote on the candidates on board the annual elections. Each Rei member is able to nominate to run for the headquarters of the board, but changes to the by -laws in the early 2000s gave the existing final on board who appeared on the newsletter. The by -laws also prohibit employees from running for places on board. The united workers say the process became undemocratic and left them without voice.
Several Rei employees testified in favor of a public hearing bill on Wednesday.
“Rei used the experience of workers to make business decisions and every day people served on board,” says Andrew Soderquist, a rei employee in Seattle. “There are no meaningful ways to share our perspectives now or to give feedback.”
Soderquist added he was shocked when he recently saw the Rei board sign on a Letter Support by US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, appointed to the Trump Administration and a former governor of North Dakota, who has encountered criticism by ecological activists and members of the rei over his loved one Ties to the fossil fuel an industry and a recent order that makes the way for Drilling oil and natural gas on public lands.
Ray Answer members’ criticism regarding Burgum This week, saying that the cooperator has signed the letter “in recognition of his outdoor recreation work, the relationship between health and nature and establishing the outdoor recreation office in North Dakota.” The company said it disagreed with its recent order on drilling natural lands and urged members to sign a Petition in opposition.
A Rei spokesman told Cascade PBS and Knkx that the company had no comment on HB 1635.
Michael Hutchings, a business lawyer in Washington, who advises corporations and management cooperatives, testifies to the Wednesday bill.
“Although this bill may have a delightful goal of raising the prospects of council employees, the imposition of the Site of the Legislative Employees is fundamentally insufficient and will create significant problems,” Hutings said, speaking as an individual.
Hutings said he was concerned that the bill would set a “dangerous precedent” by heading to one specific company and sending a message to other businesses that lawmakers in Washington are ready to “interfere” in a labor dispute. He was also worried that employees sitting on the board would open up for concerns about conflict of interest.
Unionized Rei employees hired two candidates for professionals to run at this year’s Board of Directors: Sheona Moreno, Seattle Activist, who runs a non -profit climate of 350 Sattle, and Tefer Gebre, Greenpeace chief program officer and former executive director AFL-CIO President.
It is unclear whether any of the Union -backed candidates will appear on the newsletters this spring. A Rei spokesman said the company had never received a Moreno application, although Moreno had shared a screenshot that appears to show that it sends the email to the board, its application material before the deadline.
The Rey Board met on February 3 to decide which candidates, nominated for independently, to allow the newsletter. The candidate Slate will not be public until March 3. Waiting for Moreno and GeBR to be left outside the newsletter, the Rei Union is Summons In order to vote not to anyone, the board expose forward.
Moreno testifies in favor of the proposed bill on Wednesday.
“I was shocked to learn that Ray banned workers from the board and had not yet reached a fair treaty with employees,” Moreno said. “I believe that large cooperatives must have workers in their advice in order to make sure they remain true to their valid values.”
A spokesman for a reporter RU said in an email that if the Cooperative Bill is not voted outside the executive session next week, it is probably dead for the session.
This story has been produced as part of Murrow’s local news program.