REI union calls boycott after contract talks stall, Walmart workers may take note

REI’s contract fight turned public fast, and that is the part Walmart associates should watch. After talks with the REI Union and the UFCW-RWDSU coalition stalled, workers called for a boycott of the co-op’s Anniversary Sale, which runs May 15-25. The union said more than 70,000 REI Co-op members had already pledged not to shop if management kept bargaining in bad faith.

The dispute moved into the open after REI and the union coalition met April 28-30 and still could not reach an agreement. REI said the boycott was disappointing and argued that the union was hurting the business’s financial wellbeing rather than advancing negotiations. That is a familiar retail script: workers push pressure onto sales and customer sentiment, while management says it is protecting the company and pointing to reinvestment.

REI’s own numbers show why labor conflict does not disappear just because a company can point to better results. On May 4, the co-op said 2025 net sales reached $3.54 billion and that it invested more than $300 million in members, employees and communities. It also said it narrowed its net loss while improving product assortment, inventory and pricing. For workers, that combination matters because it shows how employers can talk about turnaround, investment and discipline at the same time that employees are still fighting over pay and terms.

The organizing track at REI has been building for years. The first union store was the SoHo location in New York City in 2022. By January 24, 2025, the Greensboro, North Carolina, store became the 11th unionized REI location. In July 2025, REI and the UFCW-RWDSU coalition agreed to a national bargaining structure for those 11 stores, with a goal of reaching store-level contracts by the end of January 2026. That framework did not prevent the current stalemate.

A 12th REI store in San Diego is also moving toward a union election, with voting set for May 27-28. That is the warning sign for other retail workers, including Walmart associates: public-pressure campaigns do not start with a boycott. They usually show up first as petitions, coordinated complaints, local media attention and sudden changes in management messaging once organizing becomes visible. In retail, that is how pressure moves from the break room to the sales floor, and then to the customer.