In first for the industry, PRG management agrees to recognize Workers United as the union for employees at the company’s Beaverton and Northeast Portland facilities
Media Contact:
Ben Bennett, Workers United
Cell: (484) 809-1052 | Email: ben.bennett@workers-united.org
December 8, 2025 — Portland, OR — Workers United and climbing workers at Portland Rock Gym’s (PRG) Northeast and Beaverton facilities are pleased to announce that PRG management has agreed to voluntarily recognize the union of PRG employees. With the move, PRG has become the first indoor rock-climbing employer in the U.S. to voluntarily recognize its employees’ union rather than force workers to seek representation through an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Across the U.S., workers have now unionized at 29 climbing gyms operated by seven different employers. In each previous instance, workers have had to vote in an NLRB election.
Management’s decision to voluntarily recognize the union came quickly after workers publicly announced their campaign. On November 11th, workers and supporters gathered at the Northeast Portland gym to hand deliver to management a letter declaring workers’ intent to unionize. In the letter, signed by more than 70 percent of PRG’s non-supervisory employees, workers informed management of their plans to petition the NLRB for an election if the company did not voluntarily recognize the union. Within two days of receiving the letter, PRG Vice President Brendan Rall reached out to the workers’ organizing committee to begin the discussions that led to the voluntary recognition agreement. The agreement covers 35 workers who staff the front desks, monitor safety conditions, teach customers to scale walls, coach climbing teams, maintain facilities, serve customers at the gym’s cafe and coordinate fitness programming.
Leaders of the union campaign credit PRG management for responding swiftly and respecting the will of employees.
“Management did the right thing by quickly recognizing our union,” said Erin DeLallo, who works as an instructor and front desk worker at the Northeast gym. “There is a lot of work to be done to improve working conditions at our gyms. But we’re excited that management signalled that they want to go into contract negotiations embracing a spirit of collaboration.”
The two PRG facilities will be the 23rd and 24th gyms to unionize with Workers United as part of the union’s Climbing Workers United campaign. (Five other gyms, all in Minnesota, have unionized with the United Food and Commercial Workers.) The PRG workers are the first climbing gym employees in the Pacific Northwest to unionize.
“My coworkers and I are a unit,” said Beaverton front desk worker Natalia Creagh-Grave. “We are excited to be the first organized climbing gym in Oregon. We will democratically make decisions together and fight for each other.”
Across the U.S., coaches, instructors, routesetters and customer experience workers in climbing gyms are organizing with Climbing Workers United to improve the labor practices of an industry that has too often counted on workers’ passion for climbing to compensate for gyms’ low pay, poor benefits, inconsistent scheduling, and inadequate training and safety standards. Climbing Workers United is a campaign of Workers United. Portland Rock Gym workers are organizing with Workers United’s Western States Regional Joint Board.
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