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REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

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Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#11

Post by vore »

EGreg wrote: post #7

How socialist is REI really? Are they like Mondragon? Seems not — workers do not own the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI_worker_organization I like experiments in having employees actually own companies, or make their own decisions, but the closest I see in the consumer facing sector is stuff like REI or Valve software maybe — and that is only at the pleasure of its actual owners. By contrast, HOAs and hou…

They might call themselves REI "co-op", but a consumers' cooperative is really the polar opposite of representing the interests of workers. It's really just a shareholder owned company with a few steps removed in the middle.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#12

Post by uoaei »

EGreg wrote: post #7

How socialist is REI really? Are they like Mondragon? Seems not — workers do not own the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI_worker_organization I like experiments in having employees actually own companies, or make their own decisions, but the closest I see in the consumer facing sector is stuff like REI or Valve software maybe — and that is only at the pleasure of its actual owners. By contrast, HOAs and hou…

Mondragon is a worker co-op. REI is a consumer co-op.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#13

Post by trescenzi »

EGreg wrote: post #7

How socialist is REI really? Are they like Mondragon? Seems not — workers do not own the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI_worker_organization I like experiments in having employees actually own companies, or make their own decisions, but the closest I see in the consumer facing sector is stuff like REI or Valve software maybe — and that is only at the pleasure of its actual owners. By contrast, HOAs and hou…

The whole co-op part of REI has always felt weird and forced and then when they started union busting it became clear they didn’t actually give a fuck about that part of themselves.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#14

Post by vore »

trescenzi wrote: post #13
EGreg wrote: post #7

How socialist is REI really? Are they like Mondragon? Seems not — workers do not own the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI_worker_organization I like experiments in having employees actually own companies, or make their own decisions, but the closest I see in the consumer facing sector is stuff like REI or Valve software maybe — and that is only at the pleasure of its actual owners. By contrast, HOAs and hou…

The whole co-op part of REI has always felt weird and forced and then when they started union busting it became clear they didn’t actually give a fuck about that part of themselves.

Unfortunately there's nothing amiss here: it's inherently in the interests of the consumers who own the co-op to exploit the workers who work there.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#19

Post by hotnfresh »

vore wrote: post #11
EGreg wrote: post #7

How socialist is REI really? Are they like Mondragon? Seems not — workers do not own the company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI_worker_organization I like experiments in having employees actually own companies, or make their own decisions, but the closest I see in the consumer facing sector is stuff like REI or Valve software maybe — and that is only at the pleasure of its actual owners. By contrast, HOAs and hou…

They might call themselves REI "co-op", but a consumers' cooperative is really the polar opposite of representing the interests of workers. It's really just a shareholder owned company with a few steps removed in the middle.

In practice, the “co-op” stuff really just amounts to a run of the mill rewards program. I can’t tell any actual difference between it and various other “loyalty program” thingies, aside from that they force you to join it to buy anything from them.
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