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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

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 housing cooperatives like Mitchell-Lama, or credit unions, are truly owned by their members. A growint number of DAOs online are as well.

Most universities have an element of democratic governance as well.

Other than that, most other concerns is owned by outside shareholders, with some shares often traded on a public stock market, but the ones who call the shots are the same people who sit on each other’s boards and lobby Congress etc.

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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.

I guess that’s true :/

Of course I know it is a consumer co-op as a member but for some reason I’d always thought about it as pro worker because I associate “co-op” generally with the labor movement. Worker co-ops would be of course but that’s not the case here.

That's the whole scam

They use the good name of a COOP to get people to think that they are a good organization, when in fact they are just like every other blood sucking corporation out there - but worse cause they hide their intentions.

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.

This is how I’ve felt about it. I’m a member and I had no idea you can vote for board members, that never came up during the pitch to sign up. It was all about the member-only sales events and cash back rewards.

Members can vote on the board of directors.

I doubt anyone really cares, and it's not open nominations.

The difference is that the company is actually owned by the co-op members, so it’s a co-op and not a rewards program.

I don’t get any money out of it unless I buy stuff. And it’s never anywhere near how much I spent. And I’m pretty sure it’s store credit (I can’t recall for sure, been a while). So.

I thought you were wrong about cash back being not an option, but that changed this year:

https://www.rei.com/help?a=Can-I-receive-my-Total-REI-Reward...

That's pretty lame.

You'll definitely get asked about it, but there is absolutely no requirement to join to buy anything from REI.

It's a $30 fee for lifetime discounts. A co-op by way of self description rather than by cooperation.

Until very recently it was $20. Now, every new member has $5 donated from REI to their "action fund" which the member cannot choose what cause that supports. This effectively means that $5 of every membership goes to the action fund. And the majority of that money does not go to nature conservation like you might assume.

I think a membership co-op that is run to benefit its members should lower the fee by $5 or at least let them choose where the $5 goes.

How’s that different than something like Costco or BJ’s

Those companies have annual membership fees. REI is one-time. Also, REI is open to the public; the other stores only sell to members (aside from alcohol and pharmacy items, which in some states must be sold to anyone).

Not even close, labor isn't protected here at all so it's a total misnomer

It's a CONSUMERS CO-OP, has nothing to do with real labor organizing

It's capitalism's attempt at providing security to consumers (rather than simply landlords) against producers and laborers.

There are unionized REI stores, it's just not universal across the chain.

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

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