“Sign or We Stop”: Workers at America’s Largest Climbing Gym Chain Prepare a Historic Escalation
- Matthieu Amaré
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
On June 20, workers at Movement San Francisco launched a national campaign asking customers to pledge to freeze their memberships. Management has spent thousands of dollars on anti-union legal fees. Ten unionized gyms are still waiting for their first contract. At the largest climbing gym chain in North America, the standoff is entering a new phase.
On Saturday, June 20, 2026, at 2 p.m., about 20 people gathered outside Movement San Francisco, a few miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. Some held signs. Others handed flyers to members walking through the door. They were not asking them to turn around. They were asking them to scan a form and sign one promise: if the workers give the signal, they will freeze their memberships. By the next day, workers say more than 300 members had already pledged to do it.
The practice picket — a trial run meant to test support before a larger action — officially launched a new national campaign led by Climbing Workers United. At the same time, Movement workers in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and the Baltimore suburbs were handing out the same flyers outside their own gyms.
This is not the first chapter in the fight. In January, Vertige Media reported on how Movement workers were organizing at a pace the climbing industry had never seen, while earning an average of $15 an hour in cities like San Francisco and New York, where a living wage — enough to cover basic costs — is above $25 an hour. Aaron Vanek, a full-time organizer with Climbing Workers United, told us then that Movement was the key domino: “Once we bring down this big domino, it will mean we can close negotiations anywhere in the country.” This summer, that bet is playing out in public — and workers have decided to turn up the pressure.
Ten wins, zero contracts
Since late 2024, workers at 10 Movement Gyms have voted to join Climbing Workers United, a union affiliated with Workers United. In San Francisco, the December vote was unanimous. “Our vote to unionize was unanimous back in December and there is strong solidarity among our team,” Merit Hagenkort, Front Desk Lead at Movement San Francisco, told Vertige Media. And yet, despite 10 election wins, none of those gyms has secured a collective bargaining agreement.
That is the problem. In the American labor system, a union election does not change much on the ground until a contract is signed — and that is often where employers slow the process down. Movement workers’ demands are straightforward: raise wages that are too low, address what unions call pay compression — when new hires are paid nearly as much as experienced staff, effectively wiping out seniority — fix chronic understaffing, create more full-time jobs, provide holiday pay for routesetters, the workers who design indoor climbs, and address safety concerns tied to air quality. Workers point to “a lack of investment in our facilities.”
“The implicit message to hesitant workers: joining a union will cost you”
Merit Hagenkort, employee at Movement Gym San Francisco
With bargaining stalled, Movement recently sent a message that workers at unionized gyms decoded quickly. The week before the San Francisco picket, the company announced new paid holidays — but only for non-union locations. Hagenkort called it “a move that feels designed to undermine our organizing.”
Movement workers say the move fits a familiar anti-union playbook, known in the U.S. as union-busting. The implicit message to hesitant workers: “joining a union will cost you.” Unfair labor practice charges have also been filed against Movement with federal authorities. If successful, those charges can legally force an employer back to the bargaining table in good faith.
Very expensive lawyers
According to Aaron Vanek, Movement has hired Jackson Lewis, a law firm known for representing employers in union fights, and is paying steep fees in some cases. “Imagine how that money could be used to improve the gyms or pay their employees,” he told Vertige Media.
“The fact that they are responding in such a way shows that they are afraid of the power of their workers. We are confident we will win a contract that will change conditions for Movement employees. It is a question of when, not if”
Aaron Vanek, a member of Climbing Workers United
For Movement workers, this is not just a bad line item. Their employer is backed by private equity — investment in companies that are not publicly traded. Spending that kind of money, they argue, is a business decision: stopping unionization across a 30-gym chain means protecting margins built in part on low wages and maximum workforce flexibility.
Vertige Media asked Movement for comment on these points. The company did not respond.
Vanek is not backing down. “The fact that they are responding in such a way shows that they are afraid of the power of their workers. We are confident we will win a contract that will change conditions for Movement employees. It is a question of when, not if.”
The federation is asked to pick a side
The union push is not limited to gym entrances. In May, Workers United International President Lynne Fox sent a letter to USA Climbing, the national governing body for competition climbing in the United States, asking it to stop holding competitions, qualifiers, or championships at facilities that do not respect workers’ rights. In practice, that would rule out Movement Gyms and Touchstone Climbing, California’s largest climbing gym chain, where several Bay Area and Los Angeles locations are also in conflict with Workers United.
The argument is direct: climbing has been an Olympic sport since Tokyo 2020, and “When USA Climbing partners with facilities where management has committed labor law violations or where serious labor disputes remain unresolved, it risks placing the sport out of alignment with international standards and exposing athletes, events and the sport itself to reputational harm.”
“When USA Climbing partners with facilities where management has committed labor law violations or where serious labor disputes remain unresolved, it risks placing the sport out of alignment with international standards and exposing athletes, events and the sport itself to reputational harm”
Lynne Fox, International President of Workers United
The letter followed new unfair labor practice charges filed against Movement with the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees labor relations in the U.S. Workers’ attorneys describe “surface bargaining” — going through the motions of negotiation with no real intent to reach a deal — at several gyms: Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park in Chicago; Callowhill in Philadelphia; Gowanus, LIC, and Harlem in New York; and Crystal City in Virginia.
“At my gym, Movement has been bargaining in bad faith with us for as long as we've been unionized. We're ready to do whatever it takes to win a contract,” said Aliya Hunter, a front desk worker at Movement Harlem.
The customer has leverage
Facing a wall from management, Climbing Workers United is scaling up. If management will not bargain with its employees, maybe it will listen to its customers.
The campaign launched on June 20 asks members and visitors to sign a freeze pledge — a promise to temporarily freeze their memberships. This is not yet an active boycott. It is a collective pre-commitment from a critical mass of customers who, when the union chooses the moment, would suspend their payments at the same time. Workers are holding financial pressure in reserve, ready to use it if they have to.
“We're grateful for the solidarity and support we've seen from members and guests during our practice picket and at the gyms every day, and it only strengthens our resolve,” Hagenkort said.
Already, nearly 500 Movement Gyms workers have organized with Climbing Workers United. Across the climbing industry, more than 1,200 workers at 31 gyms have joined Workers United.
Movement remains the most symbolic case, the most closely watched — and probably the most important for the entire North American climbing industry. It is a test for a sector that has grown from roughly 350 gyms to nearly 900 in the United States in the past decade, while working conditions have not kept pace.
“Given how fast this industry is growing, there is no reason this shouldn't be a viable career,” Hagenkort said.
Meaning: full-time work, decent pay, benefits, and a future.
The June 20 picket in San Francisco was the first visible piece of a larger structure now taking shape: a membership-freeze campaign, pressure on USA Climbing, a growing number of cases before the National Labor Relations Board — and on the other side, the deafening silence of the largest climbing gym chain in the United States.
No contract has been signed at Movement. But no unionized gym has backed down, either.
