The Union Skipped the Bargaining Table and Went Straight to the Sponsors
Workers United is asking The North Face and USA Climbing to cut ties with Movement Gyms. That is mostly lawful.
Workers United, an SEIU affiliate, represents more than 500 workers at 10 unionized locations of Movement Gyms. Movement is the largest climbing gym operator in the country, runs 30-plus locations, is headquartered in Colorado, and is private equity-backed.
On May 7, 2026 the union filed a fresh round of ULP charges. Surface bargaining nationwide. In Long Island City, refusing to substantively answer an information request about a broken HVAC system. In Gowanus and Harlem, unilateral changes putting minimally trained front desk staff on climbing instruction while cutting trained instructor hours. In Timonium, Maryland, interrogating employees about union involvement, implying benefits without a union, and threatening stricter management if workers organized. Earlier charges cover Arlington, Brooklyn, and Chicago.
All allegation. Movement says it’s participating meaningfully in negotiations.
But the charges aren’t the campaign. This is:
The union wrote to USA Climbing asking it to sanction events only at facilities that respect worker rights. It wrote to VF Corporation, which owns The North Face, asking it to sever its partnership with Movement until there’s good-faith bargaining. It ran rallies at North Face locations. More than 600 gym members pledged to freeze their memberships.
Now the law:
Section 8(b)(4) bars a union from coercing a neutral business into cutting off the primary employer. Reading that, you’d think this campaign is squarely illegal. It mostly isn’t. In Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council, decided in 1988, the Supreme Court held that peaceful handbilling urging consumers to boycott neutral businesses is not coercion under the Act — the statute gets construed narrowly to avoid a First Amendment collision. Letters, rallies, and public appeals aimed at your partners are generally lawful. Picketing a neutral is a different analysis entirely, and that line matters.
For employers: your Board defense and your corporate campaign defense are two separate projects. Your sponsors, licensors, and franchise partners will make their decisions on reputational risk, not on the merits of an 8(a)(5) allegation — and they will make them faster than any ALJ.
Every commercial relationship you have just became a pressure point, and not one of those partners signed up for your labor relations. Has anyone had that conversation with theirs? Might be worth putting on the calendar.
For more like this, please subscribe to my newsletter The Labor Leader: https://lnkd.in/gMzA2V-n
For a weekly recap of all NLRB publications, please subscribe to my newsletter NLRB Publications Weekly: https://lnkd.in/gJ2gaM9P