Last year, during a mandatory meeting of employees at a Manhattan REI store, a manager ticked off a list of what he called “serious red flags” about the union trying to organize the company’s employees. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) has suffered a decline in membership and revenue, he said, which should be concerning. What’s more, he said, “they’ve allocated barely any revenue to social impact,” according to an audio recording of the gathering reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek. “Compare that to our $6.3 million to nonprofit partners in 2021 alone.”

Some employees found that criticism strange: In their eyes, the union itself is a social impact organization, one that helps advance the sort of values that drew them to work at REI in the first place. “We are living the co-op values by doing this,” says one of them, Claire Chang. “Coming together to unionize as workers is 100% aligned with what REI says they are.”