By Comrade Lynn

CHICAGO – On February 24th, 2024, employees of the Lincoln Park REI walked out on strike around 8:45 AM, just after the “Team Huddle” at the start of their shifts. This was one of two strikes performed by employees of this store in particular, with one of their earlier strikes happening last October. When asked why the store had decided to walk out this past Saturday, Margaux, one of the workers, said that the company was “withholding yearly merit raises” and that “every store is supposed to get these raises,” She also pointed out that REI has exclusively withheld these raises from unionized stores.

Many employees, rightfully frustrated with this veer away from the ‘faux progressive’ attitude of the company, decided it was time to walk out on strike. When asked what their demands were, the same worker said, simply, their demands were the original status-quo, “the solution is simple, REI must give us our annual merit raises,” Among these employees were members of the Consumer Co-Operative and other individuals who agreed with this demand and one who even brought their canine companion along to show support. Suffering from the increasing cost of living and stagnating wages, it seemed that many agreed with the sentiment that their wages should be reflecting the increasing cost of living.

When asked how long the unionized stores had gone without receiving their anticipated merit raise, Andy, another worker at REI, told us that it had been over a week since management had told them that they would not be getting them. When asked for comment, Andy said, “We are going to present them with our demand, which is just to get our usual annual merit raise, but we suspect it will be ignored,” He also noted the economic anguish brought onto his household by the company’s decision and that working conditions had not improved since their last strike in October.

About mid-way through the strike, speeches began, with a handful of people talking about their struggles to scrape by in the face of the ever-increasing cost of living. From rent, bills, food, transportation, etc. they gave a glimpse into the internal contradictions and mechanisms of Capitalism. The ever growing need of the Capitalist to both, on the one hand, chase after superprofits and, on the other, keep wages low as to extract greater surplus-value from the workers; this seemingly creates the contradiction between stagnating wages and the increasing cost of living which was correctly highlighted by many of the workers as untenable.

It follows suit that unions are generally unprofitable for the Capitalist, which seemed to be understood on some level by most of the workers. When the topic of corporate motivations for this reversal of policy came up Ange, a member of the Union’s Organizing and Bargaining Committee, said that “it’s very clear that this is a union-busting tactic,” and many other Unionized workers agreed, with one even holding a sign which read ‘Union Busting is disgusting’. Ange further stated that the news hadn’t been broken to them in any official statements from the company, but was instead revealed to them in a “hush-hush” manner by management pulling small groups aside.

REI’s anti-worker actions and blatant use of unfair labor practices betray the growing fear of rising workers movements in the united states among the capitalist class. However, in order to truly knap these movements into the threat that capitalists believe them to be, communists must strive to provide political leadership to the workers and assist the escalation of class struggle to destroy the capitalist-imperialist machine and bring about socialist revolution.