As the integrity of our democratic institutions is threatened more and more, convincing American workers in all sectors that unions are right for them represents an opportunity to consolidate power against unchecked corporate influence and an emboldened Far Right.
By Aaron Vanek
March 14, 2025
Source: Convergence Magazine
Fresh off the announcement of our union campaign at the VITAL Climbing Gym in Brooklyn, NY, my coworkers and I learned we would have the chance to meet climbing legend Alex Honnold during a public recording of a podcast episode he was hosting, highlighting the work of entrepreneurs researching oceanic climate solutions. We jumped at the opportunity. Excited to tell him about our work in the industry—and potentially get a photo for our campaign page—we made a beeline for him as soon as the recording ended. We introduced ourselves and excitedly told him that we were fighting to unionize our gym.
“Oh…why?” Honnold replied. You could hear the wind come out of our sails.
“Isn’t it basically just a temp job?”
Taken aback by his confusion, we made our way through the talking points we’d crafted through the discussions we’d had over the last nine months with climbing industry workers: low pay, lack of communication from management, and a desire to raise the employment standard for industry professionals like routesetters and coaches. He nodded along politely: not the reaction we’d been hoping for.
Honnold’s question lingered as we exited: Why did unions belong in climbing gyms? He clearly wasn’t convinced, and this was far from the first time we had received that response.
For those of us who work these jobs, the reasoning is clear: we have witnessed firsthand the staggering growth of the climbing industry, and we believe that the workers who create that success should be given both a seat at the table and a slice of the pie. Beyond a desire for the respect and dignity that comes with unionizing our own workplaces, we know the power of subverting popular preconceptions about the kinds of workplaces that unions are for. As the integrity of our democratic institutions is threatened more and more, convincing American workers in all sectors that unions are right for them represents an opportunity to consolidate power against unchecked corporate influence and an emboldened far-right.
From “dirtbag” to mainstream
My fellow organizers and I often cite the profound cultural shift climbing has undergone in the last decade. The sport has come a long way from its countercultural “dirtbag” roots. Thanks to popular media like Honnold’s own Academy Award-winning documentary Free-Solo, climbing has entered the mainstream.
The result has been a boom in indoor climbing gyms. Gyms offer an accessible step into the excitement of climbing, as well as a window into the increasingly popular competition scene. In the last decade, gym growth has exploded across the country. What was once a niche activity is attracting the eyes of the everyday athlete, along with private equity investors looking to capitalize. Climbing gyms have become a multi-billion dollar industry, and you can tell by looking at them. This may be best embodied in my own workplace: VITAL Climbing Gym, located in Brooklyn’s upscale Williamsburg neighborhood. With its minimalist design of oak-colored wood and shiny white vinyl, the space more closely resembles the Apple Store down the street than the fiberglass faux rock walls I grew up climbing on in Minneapolis.
Yet conditions for workers don’t reflect the flourishing industry. Wages have remained low, employees can be terminated at-will, and few benefits are in place. Climbing coaches with years or even decades of experience earn far less than those who instruct other specialty athletic activities. Routesetters, who create the paths on which customers climb, often deal with chronic injury and lack access to quality and affordable healthcare. Operations workers—understaffed and underpaid—rely on their personal expertise to ensure that customers are safely belaying, dozens of feet in the air, and that these customers are sufficiently trained in falling ten feet at a time. Climbing workers are well aware that the ever-increasing economic success of gyms—which depends upon their ability to keep customers safe in a dangerous sport—comes at the cost of their own prosperity and well-being.
After a decade of rampant industry growth, gym employees from across the country are demanding better. Since 2021, over 20 gyms have announced or won union campaigns, and the first-ever industry contract was signed by VITAL’s Manhattan location last year. In July 2022, my coworkers at VITAL Brooklyn became Climbers United Brooklyn after successfully unionizing with Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Now, awareness of climbing unions is growing beyond gym employees. A May 2024 profile in Climbing Magazine, often recognized as the industry’s top publication, gave the broader climbing community an overview of years of organizing efforts in a huge step for the movement.
Unions belong everywhere
Despite these wins, questions like Honnold’s are still pervasive, and betray a larger sentiment about the kinds of workers that people think have a place in the labor movement.
I don’t think Alex Honnold is anti-union. Most people aren’t. The number of Americans who say they support unions is the highest it has been in decades, and labor has been winning big. Historic strikes by the Screen Actors Guild, United Auto Workers, and International Longshoreman’s Association have won both huge concessions and public support. During the UAW Stand Up Strikes of 2023, a sitting American president picketed publicly with striking workers for the first time in history.
But union membership continues to fall. Only 11% of US workers now belong to unions, a far cry from the 1950s when one-third were union members. The reasons for this decline are well-documented. While deindustrialization bled the US of union jobs, Cold War-era anti-communism, persistent anti-union ideology and changes to US labor laws have inhibited unions from expanding their bases of power. They have lost the cultural capital to effectively make headway in new industries and the American workforce has become alienated from the labor movement.
This dissociation has been internalized in our culture, as exemplified by VITAL management when workers in Manhattan first announced their campaign. In a pre-election email to all staff, a manager wrote: “If, while working at VITAL, we ever cut pay and benefits, pay only minimum wage, or stop giving regular raises, please join a union. And if you ever find yourself a nameless, faceless drone on a giant factory floor, please join a union. If, however, you find yourself part of a small team of nice people working hard to do something kinda fun, then perhaps consider that it may not be the right time to join a union :)”
Unsurprisingly, the smiling emoticon at the end did not dissuade workers; they unanimously voted “union yes” six weeks later. My boss at the Brooklyn gym later told me that while she is supportive of unions personally, she just didn’t think it was the right fit for workers at VITAL. Referring to union dues, she said she didn’t want to see people lose three percent of their paycheck (much higher than the actual, later agreed-upon rate) just for the chance to make a change. Her position, plainly, was that it wasn’t worth it.
This is the crux of Honnold’s “why” question, and is something that labor leaders should seek to answer if organized labor is to ever again reclaim its historic prominence in society. With economic inequality reaching heights not seen since the United States’s first Gilded Age, unions are primed to make a comeback. To prevent a future degradation of worker power, unions must seek gains beyond traditional union sectors. In order to create truly transformative change for American workers, it is imperative that unions additionally focus on forward-thinking organizing in previously untouched industries. I believe that the success union organizing has found in climbing gyms can serve as a roadmap for this undertaking.
A route forward
In speaking to organized workers in the climbing industry about why they have embarked on their campaigns, the number one issue cited is a desire for a seat at the table. Workers feel an immense sense of ownership over their gyms, which represent not just a workplace, but a community centered around a beloved sport. As climbing gym unions have garnered more and more success, I have witnessed workers in my own gym and others come to believe that their effort is, in fact, worth it.
This sentiment is supported by changes to the material conditions of employees. Since ratifying the first two union contracts in the history of the industry, VITAL workers at the Brooklyn and Manhattan locations make an average of $3,000 more in their first year than before we began organizing; health insurance premiums have been reduced by thirty percent, and employees now enjoy paid time off and holiday pay. We have intervened to prevent employee termination, improved communication between employees and management, and dismantled a policy that forbade workers from sitting at any point during their shifts. These concrete wins, more than anything, strengthen my stalwart belief that unions belong in climbing gyms.
If we can prove that unionization is worth it in climbing gyms, we can prove that it’s worth it in any workplace. We can show that workers do not have to be “mindless drones on a factory floor” to be deserving of the dignity, stability, and voice that a union brings. In doing so, we can convince American workers that the labor movement has room for all workers, regardless of where they work or what they do.
VITAL workers at the Brooklyn and Manhattan locations make an average of $3,000 more in their first year than before we began organizing; health insurance premiums have been reduced by thirty percent, and employees now enjoy paid time off and holiday pay.
So, if you work in a climbing gym, a coffee shop, an art store, or anywhere else that you have been told is “not the right fit for a union,” this is your sign to organize. It starts with a single question: “What would you like to change about the place that you work?”
If you work in a climbing gym and would like to join the hundreds of workers in our industry who have taken a step towards towards making that change a reality, you can get in contact with an organizer from our union here or reach out to your local climbing gym union’s social media account (ours is @climbersunitedunion). Organize for yourself, organize for your coworkers, and organize for a more just future for us all.
Aaron Vanek is a Minneapolis-born organizer, climber, and actor living in Brooklyn, NY. Following the ratification of industry-first union contracts at his own workplace in a climbing gym, Aaron now works as an organizer at Workers United, collaborating with climbing workers across the country.
Fresh off the announcement of our union campaign at the VITAL Climbing Gym in Brooklyn, NY, my coworkers and I learned we would have the chance to meet climbing legend Alex Honnold during a public recording of a podcast episode he was hosting, highlighting the work of entrepreneurs researching oceanic climate solutions. We jumped at the opportunity. Excited to tell him about our work in the industry—and potentially get a photo for our campaign page—we made a beeline for him as soon as the recording ended. We introduced ourselves and excitedly told him that we were fighting to unionize our gym.
“Oh…why?” Honnold replied. You could hear the wind come out of our sails.
“Isn’t it basically just a temp job?”
Taken aback by his confusion, we made our way through the talking points we’d crafted through the discussions we’d had over the last nine months with climbing industry workers: low pay, lack of communication from management, and a desire to raise the employment standard for industry professionals like routesetters and coaches. He nodded along politely: not the reaction we’d been hoping for.
Honnold’s question lingered as we exited: Why did unions belong in climbing gyms? He clearly wasn’t convinced, and this was far from the first time we had received that response.
For those of us who work these jobs, the reasoning is clear: we have witnessed firsthand the staggering growth of the climbing industry, and we believe that the workers who create that success should be given both a seat at the table and a slice of the pie. Beyond a desire for the respect and dignity that comes with unionizing our own workplaces, we know the power of subverting popular preconceptions about the kinds of workplaces that unions are for. As the integrity of our democratic institutions is threatened more and more, convincing American workers in all sectors that unions are right for them represents an opportunity to consolidate power against unchecked corporate influence and an emboldened far-right.
From “dirtbag” to mainstream
My fellow organizers and I often cite the profound cultural shift climbing has undergone in the last decade. The sport has come a long way from its countercultural “dirtbag” roots. Thanks to popular media like Honnold’s own Academy Award-winning documentary Free-Solo, climbing has entered the mainstream.
The result has been a boom in indoor climbing gyms. Gyms offer an accessible step into the excitement of climbing, as well as a window into the increasingly popular competition scene. In the last decade, gym growth has exploded across the country. What was once a niche activity is attracting the eyes of the everyday athlete, along with private equity investors looking to capitalize. Climbing gyms have become a multi-billion dollar industry, and you can tell by looking at them. This may be best embodied in my own workplace: VITAL Climbing Gym, located in Brooklyn’s upscale Williamsburg neighborhood. With its minimalist design of oak-colored wood and shiny white vinyl, the space more closely resembles the Apple Store down the street than the fiberglass faux rock walls I grew up climbing on in Minneapolis.
Yet conditions for workers don’t reflect the flourishing industry. Wages have remained low, employees can be terminated at-will, and few benefits are in place. Climbing coaches with years or even decades of experience earn far less than those who instruct other specialty athletic activities. Routesetters, who create the paths on which customers climb, often deal with chronic injury and lack access to quality and affordable healthcare. Operations workers—understaffed and underpaid—rely on their personal expertise to ensure that customers are safely belaying, dozens of feet in the air, and that these customers are sufficiently trained in falling ten feet at a time. Climbing workers are well aware that the ever-increasing economic success of gyms—which depends upon their ability to keep customers safe in a dangerous sport—comes at the cost of their own prosperity and well-being.
After a decade of rampant industry growth, gym employees from across the country are demanding better. Since 2021, over 20 gyms have announced or won union campaigns, and the first-ever industry contract was signed by VITAL’s Manhattan location last year. In July 2022, my coworkers at VITAL Brooklyn became Climbers United Brooklyn after successfully unionizing with Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Now, awareness of climbing unions is growing beyond gym employees. A May 2024 profile in Climbing Magazine, often recognized as the industry’s top publication, gave the broader climbing community an overview of years of organizing efforts in a huge step for the movement.
Unions belong everywhere
Despite these wins, questions like Honnold’s are still pervasive, and betray a larger sentiment about the kinds of workers that people think have a place in the labor movement.
I don’t think Alex Honnold is anti-union. Most people aren’t. The number of Americans who say they support unions is the highest it has been in decades, and labor has been winning big. Historic strikes by the Screen Actors Guild, United Auto Workers, and International Longshoreman’s Association have won both huge concessions and public support. During the UAW Stand Up Strikes of 2023, a sitting American president picketed publicly with striking workers for the first time in history.
But union membership continues to fall. Only 11% of US workers now belong to unions, a far cry from the 1950s when one-third were union members. The reasons for this decline are well-documented. While deindustrialization bled the US of union jobs, Cold War-era anti-communism, persistent anti-union ideology and changes to US labor laws have inhibited unions from expanding their bases of power. They have lost the cultural capital to effectively make headway in new industries and the American workforce has become alienated from the labor movement.
This dissociation has been internalized in our culture, as exemplified by VITAL management when workers in Manhattan first announced their campaign. In a pre-election email to all staff, a manager wrote: “If, while working at VITAL, we ever cut pay and benefits, pay only minimum wage, or stop giving regular raises, please join a union. And if you ever find yourself a nameless, faceless drone on a giant factory floor, please join a union. If, however, you find yourself part of a small team of nice people working hard to do something kinda fun, then perhaps consider that it may not be the right time to join a union :)”
Unsurprisingly, the smiling emoticon at the end did not dissuade workers; they unanimously voted “union yes” six weeks later. My boss at the Brooklyn gym later told me that while she is supportive of unions personally, she just didn’t think it was the right fit for workers at VITAL. Referring to union dues, she said she didn’t want to see people lose three percent of their paycheck (much higher than the actual, later agreed-upon rate) just for the chance to make a change. Her position, plainly, was that it wasn’t worth it.
This is the crux of Honnold’s “why” question, and is something that labor leaders should seek to answer if organized labor is to ever again reclaim its historic prominence in society. With economic inequality reaching heights not seen since the United States’s first Gilded Age, unions are primed to make a comeback. To prevent a future degradation of worker power, unions must seek gains beyond traditional union sectors. In order to create truly transformative change for American workers, it is imperative that unions additionally focus on forward-thinking organizing in previously untouched industries. I believe that the success union organizing has found in climbing gyms can serve as a roadmap for this undertaking.
A route forward
In speaking to organized workers in the climbing industry about why they have embarked on their campaigns, the number one issue cited is a desire for a seat at the table. Workers feel an immense sense of ownership over their gyms, which represent not just a workplace, but a community centered around a beloved sport. As climbing gym unions have garnered more and more success, I have witnessed workers in my own gym and others come to believe that their effort is, in fact, worth it.
This sentiment is supported by changes to the material conditions of employees. Since ratifying the first two union contracts in the history of the industry, VITAL workers at the Brooklyn and Manhattan locations make an average of $3,000 more in their first year than before we began organizing; health insurance premiums have been reduced by thirty percent, and employees now enjoy paid time off and holiday pay. We have intervened to prevent employee termination, improved communication between employees and management, and dismantled a policy that forbade workers from sitting at any point during their shifts. These concrete wins, more than anything, strengthen my stalwart belief that unions belong in climbing gyms.
If we can prove that unionization is worth it in climbing gyms, we can prove that it’s worth it in any workplace. We can show that workers do not have to be “mindless drones on a factory floor” to be deserving of the dignity, stability, and voice that a union brings. In doing so, we can convince American workers that the labor movement has room for all workers, regardless of where they work or what they do.
VITAL workers at the Brooklyn and Manhattan locations make an average of $3,000 more in their first year than before we began organizing; health insurance premiums have been reduced by thirty percent, and employees now enjoy paid time off and holiday pay.
So, if you work in a climbing gym, a coffee shop, an art store, or anywhere else that you have been told is “not the right fit for a union,” this is your sign to organize. It starts with a single question: “What would you like to change about the place that you work?”
If you work in a climbing gym and would like to join the hundreds of workers in our industry who have taken a step towards towards making that change a reality, you can get in contact with an organizer from our union here or reach out to your local climbing gym union’s social media account (ours is @climbersunitedunion). Organize for yourself, organize for your coworkers, and organize for a more just future for us all.
Aaron Vanek is a Minneapolis-born organizer, climber, and actor living in Brooklyn, NY. Following the ratification of industry-first union contracts at his own workplace in a climbing gym, Aaron now works as an organizer at Workers United, collaborating with climbing workers across the country.
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