Marin Voice: Unionization a rewarding experience for instructor in dream job

My colleagues and I just voted to unionize our Bay Area rock-climbing gym. The future of this business has never looked brighter.

As a Marin County resident who grew up here and graduated from Redwood High School, I never thought I would find my dream at Movement San Francisco, but after more than 15 years of climbing, I’ve found both community and purpose.

In 2009, my best friend took me to a local climbing gym. After spending all summer climbing, I knew that this was what I wanted to do forever.  For years, I was a member at various gyms in the Bay Area. Then a tech layoff and a life-changing injury led me to turn my pastime into my profession.

The change has been profound. Rather than plugging away at a computer, I now get to coach kids from 6 to 60 years old every day. I help them find the sense of mastery, expression and community that has meant so much to me in my life.

It was that sense of community that kept me in this sport all these years. When I started, our rock climbing gym was part of a small, local network of California climbing gyms. It wasn’t just a place to work out; it was a meeting place for people to bond, share and keep their minds and bodies active.

Starting around 2017, there was an explosion of growth in the rock-climbing industry. The number of local gyms more than doubled. There are now approximately 25 rock-climbing gyms now in the Bay Area, with more being built.

Our gym was consolidated into a private-equity-backed corporation with 34 gyms across the country. After that, the focus seemed to shift from building and maintaining a healthy local community toward extracting as much value as possible for shareholders.

The shift in company culture has been palpable. I’ve heard many new hires are brought on at minimum wage. Employees frequently have to work multiple jobs and use government assistance to make ends meet. Meanwhile, climbers pay more and more each year to climb at the same gym. While corporate leaders espouse the values of healthy living, the apparent practice of limiting workers’ schedules keeps them in part-time status and ineligible for employer-provided health insurance.

These and other concerns inspired my colleagues and I to come together to organize our union. It began like it so often does, as a series of informal conversations between colleagues. But the more we talked, the more we realized we shared the same concerns.

The election results speak for themselves. There were 67 people on payroll when we gathered signatures for our letter of intent to unionize. Ninety percent of employees signed on. At that time, ownership declined to voluntarily recognize our union. But when we went to the National Labor Relations Board and held our election, every eligible employee – save those who were traveling and unavailable – unanimously voted yes.

Now, with the election over, our next step is selecting our bargaining committee and assembling what we want to put into a contract proposal. After that, we meet with our attorneys and begin the process of bargaining our first contract.

We are the eighth Movement Gym nationally (and the fifth climbing gym in the Bay Area) where employees have voted to unionize – and it won’t stop with us. We’ve met with workers organizing at gyms across the country and heard their stories. The biggest lesson my colleagues and I took away from this experience has been that the more workers join together, the more likely they are to get a contract.

We know the value we provide to the company. We’re proud of the work we put in every day building relationships and experiences for the excited members and families at our gym.

Rock climbing gyms are community hubs. They’re the centerpiece of a lifestyle where people stay sometimes for years. They spend their weekends seeking adventure and overcoming challenges in the mountains with the friends they made at the gym.

As workers, we want to sustain this business model and ensure the viability of our gym and the rock-climbing industry. By bringing corporations to the table to negotiate with and invest in the workers, we can help build this better future together.

This is a lengthy process, but I’m in it for the long haul. My philosophy is that if this effort helps someone in the future to make a living from their dream job, it will have all been worth it.

Alex Lin, of Tiburon, is a rock climber and coach at Movement Gym in San Francisco.