Touchstone Climbing Gym Workers in the Bay Area Enter the Fight

While climbers tackle routes on the walls, Touchstone Climbing Gym workers are facing challenges of their own — ones rooted not in bright holds, but in unstable working conditions.

On July 21, workers at Dogpatch Boulders in San Francisco and The Studio in San Jose filed for union recognition with the National Labor Relations Board. Just one week later Mission Cliffs in San Francisco and Diablo Rock Gym in Concord followed suit.

These four gyms are the first in Northern California to join a growing national movement of climbing gym workers demanding safety protections, fair pay, and a future shaped by those who keep the gym running.

This marks a major escalation in the Touchstone Workers United campaign, which formed across five Southern California gyms after management failed to inform staff about a mass shooter threat in 2023. That crisis, followed by months of stalled bargaining and healthcare rollbacks, lit the fuse on a climbing industry labor fight that has now reached the Bay.

For workers at The Studio, the decision to unionize didn’t come out of nowhere. Workers report maintenance requests for roof leaks gone unanswered, cuts to healthcare benefits that workers rely on to survive. They even say upper management pushed their location manager to remove staff from scheduled shifts at the last minute to save money. (Touchstone’s management declined to comment.)

“Touchstone has consistently fallen short in their responsibility to support their employees and build up the community, instead choosing to focus on profit margin,” said Ashley Loos, desk staff at The Studio. “Members pay increasingly higher monthly rates, while simultaneously never seeing the money they pay for their membership go back into improvements of their home gym.”

Since 2020, the cost of a membership at The Studio has climbed from $87 to $107 per month. In that same period, Touchstone has opened six new gyms and a brewery.

“It’s time for us to have a chance to make and maintain policies that support the growth of our climbing community and ourselves as hourly desk and belay staff, routesetters, and fitness instructors,” said Loos.

In all four gyms, workers are calling for a contract that includes basic safety protections, compliance with labor law, wage increases, and restoration of health care benefits. From The Studio and Dogpatch alone, the union spans over 50 desk staff, maintenance workers, routesetters, and more across the two locations.

“Touchstone loves to tell us we’re the beating heart of the company, but given their actions, it seems like they’re fine operating without a heart,” said one desk staffer at Dogpatch who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I want to work in a place that actually values the contributions I make to it and the community at large.”

Workers are asking supporters to take action by sending emails to Touchstone upper management and member services, following @touchstoneworkersunited on Instagram, and donating to their strike fund.