Indoor rock climbing is booming in Philadelphia and across the country, thanks in part to the popularity of the 2018 documentary Free Solo and the subsequent introduction of climbing as an Olympic sport.
The U.S. now has 918 climbing gyms, a 12% increase from two years ago, according to Climbing Business Journal, an industry publication.
But as more gyms have sprouted up, so too has discontent among the often low-paid, part-time instructors and desk staff who welcome in members and teach them how to climb safely.
Movement Gyms, the nation’s biggest climbing chain with 34 locations, recently opened its second Philadelphia gym in Norris Square, near Fishtown. At the same time, the company remains locked in a contract standoff with the two-year-old union at its other gym on Callowhill Street, which it acquired from The Cliffs in November 2023.
Since Movement bought the Callowhill facility, it has cut benefits and stalled negotiations in an apparent effort to quash the union, workers allege. They say company officials won’t substantively discuss contract proposals on pay, benefits, health care, and safety, and managers have unilaterally changed scheduling rules and allowed staffing levels to drop.
Conditions have become “drastically worse,” said Dana Lavin, an instructor and front desk supervisor who is the lead union organizer at Callowhill. “They’ve made lots of permanent changes illegally, as Movement, that have pretty drastically impacted the quality of the work there — both as workers, and also the effect it’s had on clientele.”
As the company apparently slow-walks contract talks, Callowhill employees are considering ways to mobilize customers to advocate on their behalf, and may eventually strike, said Aaron Vanek, a Workers United organizer in New York who works with unions in Philadelphia and other cities.
“Movement is the most challenging employer in the industry to win a contract from,” said Vanek, a former climbing instructor who helped organize his gym in Brooklyn. “They’re the largest. They have spent the most on union-busting resources. I think a lot of the industry is looking at the way that this campaign goes to ultimately see whether or not this kind of union and climbing gym experiment works out.”
Billy Penn sent a list of questions to Charlotte Bosley, Movement’s chief marketing officer, most of which the company did not directly answer.
“Movement takes its legal obligations seriously and is committed to engaging with team members respectfully, in good faith, and in accordance with all applicable labor laws,” a company spokesperson said in an unsigned statement. “When a unionized bargaining process is in place, we participate meaningfully through the established legal channels, with the goal of reaching outcomes that support both our team members and the long-term health of our gyms.”
‘An incredible space to be in’
The climbing industry has steadily grown since the first commercial gym opened in Seattle in 1987, powered by the allure of a vigorous fitness activity that lends itself to socializing, provides a fun mental challenge, and is easily accessible, including for children and teens.
The 2008 subprime mortgage and real estate crisis made it easier for entrepreneurs to lease large commercial spaces that could fit climbing walls, according to some accounts, and the rise of action sports programs like the constantly televised X Games made climbing more familiar to many Americans. The number of gyms surged over the next decade, and continued growing thanks in part to Free Solo, the acclaimed documentary about Alex Honnold’s rope-free ascent of Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan rock wall.
Private equity investors jumped on the trend, among them Tengram Capital Partners, a Connecticut firm that owns a holding company called El Cap. El Cap acquired Movement, then a small Colorado chain, in 2019, consolidated two other chains under the Movement name, and starting buying up and opening more gyms across the country. It also brought Honnold on as a board member.
For diehards like Lavin, however, climbing gyms are far more than just successful businesses or friendly places to work out. They describe them as central to their lives and their emotional and physical well-being.
“My gym is an incredible space to be able to be in. I found the strongest community that I’ve ever been a part of when I started working at the Cliffs,” she said. “I was making my first friends when I was coming to Queer Night at the gym, which we still have, which I know provides a space for people to find themselves in the same way that I found myself.”
“Climbing is the way that I keep my head on my shoulders,” said Lavin, who is 28.
Ira Lam, a 27-year-old front desk staffer at Callowhill, said her personal investment in the sport has been an “awesome” experience.
“I love climbing. It’s been my main hobby and my main sport for a decade at this point in my life,” she said. “There are a lot of things in that job that lead to a sense of personal accomplishment — like, I learned to ‘lead climb’ recently, and I recently became certified to administer our lead test. I’ve set this goal, I’ve made it, and now I am good enough at it that I can decide if other people are doing it safely or not.”
Scrambling to make rent
With climbing, however, making a career in the thing you love can be difficult. Lam and Lavin said they work at the gym in large part because employees get free membership, which would otherwise cost $109 a month, plus a $49 initiation fee.
“I simply cannot afford to be in a space like that if I’m not working there,” Lavin said.
Yet working at Movement Callowhill hardly makes financial sense either, they said. Pay rates are low, and most staff are part-timers who are capped at 30 hours per week, limiting their earnings.
Lam said she used to work at a Movement gym in New York and had worked her way up to earning $21.75 per hour; when she transferred to Philadelphia she was told the only position available was a $13.50-per-hour front desk job. Last summer she got a 1% pay increase, to $13.64, a little more than half of what’s considered a living wage for a single person.
“It’s certainly not enough to live off of. I have other jobs outside of the gym, which is the main way that I sustain myself, and that I’m able to make rent and everything,” said Lam, who also works as a ski instructor and does TaskRabbit gig jobs.
Since Movement took over, Callowhill has essentially stopped hiring people into higher-paid instructor slots, Lavin said. Instead, they’re brought on as front desk staff, given training, and scheduled to teach climbers as needed.
Lavin, who was previously a Temple adjunct professor teaching physics, said she earns $17.64 an hour as a front desk supervisor and instructor. She also has part-time jobs at a Poconos ski resort, as a food delivery driver, and with Workers United.
Across the industry, “most front desk workers are making fairly close to minimum wage. People who coach climbing don’t make much more than that,” Vanek said. “Especially compared to people who teach tennis or martial arts or gymnastics, there’s a big disparity in terms of how people are compensated.”
He attributed the low pay at Callowhill to Movement’s ownership by a private equity firm.
“They’re trying to make as much money as they can off of these gyms,” he said. “It raises prices for customers, which pushes some people out, and lowers wages for workers. So there’s an urgency to the work that we’re doing to prevent the impacts of what it means for the industry to be growing and to become more profitable.”
Lost benefits and high turnover
Recent changes to Movement Callowhill’s work scheduling rules — made without negotiating with the union — have made things even tougher for employees, they say.
Staff are now required to be available for a certain number of weekday and weekend shifts, and to announce their availability 7 or 8 weeks in advance — yet managers then take a couple weeks to announce work schedules, Lavin said. In the meantime, employees can’t commit to other jobs, while lacking any guarantee they’ll end up getting enough hours at Callowhill, she said.
The company has also cut some benefits — free classes, a discounted membership for a friend, and two months of free membership after leaving the job — and reduced overall staffing, from more than 60 people to fewer than 50, she said.
Those changes have contributed to “crazy” turnover, with only about five employees remaining of those who organized the union two and a half years ago, Lavin said.
“The company loves hiring teenagers and students who are not in a position to advocate for themselves or really have a vested interest in the gym as a space,” she said. “So those people tend to come and go relatively quickly.”
Lavin and Lam said they also wished the company did more to address health and safety issues. Water occasionally leaks through the ceiling and accumulates under gym mats, and Lam is concerned about continually breathing in chalk dust and shoe rubber particulate. Only supervisors are trained in CPR, first aid, and things like broken belay rescues or helping someone high up on a wall who isn’t tied in correctly, she said.
“I don’t know the last time we did training on that at Callowhill, so if someone were to be climbing incorrectly, I wouldn’t know what to do,” Lam said. “I’ve, like, read the paperwork, but I haven’t been formally trained.”
Months without negotiations
At the Movement Crystal City gym in Arlington, Virginia, a desire for a say in how the place is run, concerns about a shrinking staff, and a lack of pay transparency led employees to start organizing in 2021. They got help from Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
The company made clear it opposed the effort.
“We’ve done a good job building an engaging and fulfilling workplace, based on direct communication with our employees,” Robert Cohen, Movement’s CEO at the time, told Climbing Business Journal. “We would like to continue on this path and not be inhibited by a third party.”
A majority of workers voted to unionize, and after the National Labor Relations Board overruled three objections filed by the company, Crystal City became the first unionized climbing gym. The U.S. now has 27 unionized gyms, including eight Movement locations, according to Vanek and Lavin.
However, so far there are only three contracts in the industry: two at VITAL gyms in Manhattan and Brooklyn, both ratified in 2024, and another covering 96 workers at four Vertical Endeavors gyms in Minnesota, which was approved last September.
At Callowhill, contract negotiations have been slow since employees voted to unionize in December 2023, Vanek and Lavin said.
There were no negotiations from July through December last year, which Lavin attributed to Movement’s lawyer refusing all of the union’s proposed meeting dates. Movement disagreed with that characterization, saying the union experienced turnover and stopped communicating with the company.
“More recently, communication has resumed, and we have been working through the appropriate legal channels to coordinate next steps at the bargaining table,” the company spokesperson said. “Our focus remains on constructive dialogue and productive engagement through established processes.”
Movement and its unionized members have had bargaining sessions this year, but not specifically about Callowhill’s contract, Lavin said.
The two sides have agreed on some non-economic issues, including discipline and discharge procedures, but have been “fighting” for over a year over pay, benefit, and health and safety proposals, she said.
“Because we don’t have the entire contract ratified, we don’t actually get any of the material benefits of any of the things that the company has agreed to yet,” Lavin said.
A tough fight ahead
Workers United has tried to pressure Movement to bargain more seriously, in part by working to educate and win support from gym members, organizers said.
The union held a Solidarity Night in November with affinity groups, including Philly Climbers of Color and PHLash, an LGBTQIA+ climbers group. The event included a food drive inspired by recent cuts to SNAP food benefits, as a reminder that some Callowhill employees’ low earnings qualified them for food aid. Workers United also scheduled “practice” pickets outside Callowhill and a gym in Brooklyn in December (although the Philadelphia event was rained out).
In October, Lavin and other Movement employees from across the country flew to Boulder, Colorado to try to meet with the company’s CEO Anne-Worley Moelter. She agreed to meet, but barred union representatives from the room and said employees had to leave their phones outside. The group filed an unfair labor practice claim with the NLRB, alleging Movement “interfered with, restrained and coerced employees” by not letting in the union reps.
The company declined to comment on the NLRB complaint, but noted that the visit was unannounced and described it as “outside of any bargaining sessions.”
Moelter “immediately cleared her schedule to meet with and listen to fellow team members in person. She…had a respectful conversation in which she listened to questions and concerns,” Movement said. “They agreed on appropriate next steps for continued dialogue through existing channels — namely, the contract negotiation table with established representatives from both sides on agreed-upon dates.”
Vanek said Workers United has filed several NLRB complaints against Movement, including claims that the company imposed changes in working conditions at gyms in New York without negotiating.
He said he expects a continuing tough fight, including efforts by Movement to encourage employees to decertify their unions. In 2023, Workers United lost some members in Philadelphia when unionized employees at a coffee chain voted to decertify.
“We are approaching this campaign from the understanding that Movement wants to do everything that they can to avoid having a contract. We still believe that their ultimate goal is to wait for this to kind of die out then decert at all of these gyms,” Vanek said.
“So we are anticipating that what it will take to win a contract is at least the ability to conduct some sort of serious work stoppage, some sort of strike, alongside some sort of customer action to support the workers as well,” he said.
Movement did not comment on questions about decertification or a potential strike at Callowhill.
“Movement respects employees’ legal right to decide whether they want union representation. That decision belongs solely to team members,” the company’s statement said. “Our responsibility as an employer is to engage lawfully, respectfully, and with integrity, and to remain focused on building a workplace where people feel supported, heard, and able to grow.”
