The Yoga Instructors vs. the Private Equity Firm

I quit teaching Pilates in NYC over ten years ago because of job insecurity, wage theft, and bad studio policies, such as not getting paid when clients canceled sessions last minute after I showed up to work or having to pay "studio rental fees" on the rare occasion I had to call in sick with fever. Of course, no health insurance, and little control over hours despite being classified as an independent contractor. Sometimes studios would cut wages and there was nothing we could do so last minute. I found out that in-home private classes cost $120 to clients, which they paid to the company I worked for, but I was making $30. I often had to make alternate plans in the summer when all my clients went to the Hamptons. The 2008 crisis halved my clientele. It was a "hustle." I was very young and naive when I entered that profession, and I would have stayed if working conditions were fair. I enjoyed teaching Pilates and helping people understand their bodies. I hope that other fitness instructors and personal trainers decide to unionize with the yoga teachers at Yoga Works. As a current union member in a different industry, I can say personally that my Union has helped me navigate and fight unfair working conditions. I am hopeful that all workers in professions that help and care for others can have fair wages, benefits, and conditions.

What is need in the yoga industry is transparency. Social Media gives a false impression that yoga teachers have endorsement deals with Alo Yoga, Nike, Lululemons, etc and are traveling to workshops in Costa Rica, India and Bali. The reality is yoga teachers and local studios are struggling to survive on low wages and high rents.

If you cannot afford to pay your workers a living wage and benefits, please do not establish a business. Otherwise the taxpayer has to pay for your workers' lack of benefits. Taxpayers are the ones who pay for subsidized housing, food stamps, Medicare, etc. This taxpayer is tired of subsidizing companies.

Near the end of the article, a Mr. Smirnoff (if that is his real name!) says he would stop going to Yogaworks if he thought instructors were being exploited. Then he goes on to describe exactly how instructors are being exploited.

I owned a yoga studio for 20 years. Taught all 12 classes a week myself because I believe that the best teacher you can have is the one that sees you every time you come to class. I never preplanned my classes; when I saw who was in class, I created a class on the fly. I knew every student's name. I walked around and assisted my students because I knew their practices. I ABSOLUTELY never practiced with class. If necessary, I stopped class, demonstrated a posture, answered questions about it, and resumed. Way too many teachers put their own mat out and practice with their class. Forgive me here, but if you're in Downward Facing Dog, how can you keep me safe in my posture? I believe that a teacher teaches to the middle of the class. Too many teachers throw exponentially challenging postures into classes and encourage competition among students, which creates an environment where students (who are, after all, only human) go beyond their ability and injure themselves. The teacher trainings need to require a basic amount of experience from anyone whom they accept. If you're 19 years old, been practicing 6 months, and are a certified teacher, what do you a)know about my 60-year-old body or b) my 35 year yoga practice? Because youre able to do Gandha Berundhasana doesnt mean I can or that you ought to force me to go there. As for unions, I'm a believer that they would be beneficial to the teachers.

The treatment of the workers is irrelevant. Even if this were a wonderful place to work, the employees would be mistaken not to vote for the rights and power that come with unionization (and lock in the good things, in the process). To make an analogy, the problem with North Korea is not that Kim Jong Il is evil, it's that the people have no voice.

I believe that an important point for this article is that Yogaworks is planning on closing their big Soho location at the end of this month and in general is pulling back from the NYC market. Is there a connection to the unionization effort?

"“YogaWorks does not believe that employees joining — and paying dues to — a union is in the best interest of YogaWorks, our employees or our students,” But mostly, it's not in the interests of the greedy hedge fund owners.

Teachers certainly have the right to unionize to avoid exploitation, but there are inherent flaws in the studio/gym model. Attendance numbers are what the studios pay attention to, so the crowded classes stay on the schedule. This is not good for the students because they may not get the personal instruction they need to stay safe. And that's IF the teacher is knowledgeable enough to be capable of giving it or willing to take the time. Not only that, many studios have McDonald's-like approach and require teachers to use a standardized template so that the class will be the same in West LA as it is in San Francisco. This policy is extremely dangerous because Yoga poses should be modified to the students' abilities. Anything else can -- and does -- lead to injury. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-10/yoga-injuries-on-the-rise/9634154 Teacher are also at very high risk of injury from overuse because they need to take on so many classes to earn a living. I am struggling so much financially that I am thinking seriously of giving up. I have been going into my savings every month to pay bills. I hate to break it to my students and that's why I haven't done it yet. They will be devastated.

If your boss is vigorously opposing a union, that's a pretty good sign that you really need one.

Work/study, teacher trainings, "community," etc... Most yoga studios are Ponzi schemes. The yoga will not be instagrammed, snapchatted, facebooked, youtubed, televised, or otherwise commodified. It will be in your interactions with your Self and with the world.

I’ve arrived at a point in my life where I felt unions were passé and it was just a business... all about the bottom line. However after reading this article, yoga instructors need someone on their side! If YogaWorks had been doing your job, these talks would’ve never come up.

I went through the full 200 hour Yoga Teacher training, which also required an additional 30 hours of class observation and practice teaching. I loved it and loved teaching -- but after really doing the math, looking at what I would need to do in order to teach yoga as my job, I kept my job in corporate America to keep health insurance and a livable wage. I still practice yoga, I still committed to continuing my yoga education -- and plan to teach yoga as part of my "retirement job" plan. The numbers did not support transitioning to teaching as a full time endeavor -- at least for me! That being said, mopping floors, front desk work and cleaning up should be part of the yoga studio's management responsibility -- providing a clean, safe environment for both students and teachers. Not an additional tasks for teachers who are essentially gig workers, contractors and freelancers, not employees. Good luck to all yoga teachers in moving forward to creating a better environment for teachers and students. Namaste.

I run a nonprofit that has a few yoga classes/week. I am more familiar with the economics of yoga than I would like to be. Our position is to try to offer the yoga teachers the best deal we can, which isn't sufficient to live on simply because there isn't enough money walking in the door to pay more. Last year we paid 100% of revenues to the teachers - no rent taken out or anything else. If you look at yogaworks more recent 10-q (https://ir.yogaworks.com/static-files/3ee87dff-12cd-495a-abe4-efa3446a3b5c), it shows a company on the verge of bankruptcy. They can unionize, but it just means bankruptcy for them a month earlier. That said, there is no excuse for abusing your employees. unionizing in the industry might be helpful in general. But the primary problem is generating enough revenues to pay teachers in the first place. The studio owner below from Boston who brings in 150k in a good year, according to his figures below, probably pays out about 135k to teachers in salary. That leaves little over 1k/month for rent, administration, etc. The only way that works is if they teach most of the classes and take far less salary for themselves than they pay others. Both sides on this one have troubles.

Was yoga supposed to become a business?

Used to work at NYC Yogaworks. They had a bully of a teacher manager for a few years who unbelievably still teaches there. She used her ego maniacal powers to demote and demoralize well-respected teachers of her choosing while giving her friends classes on the schedule. She got the job because of a “connection” within—and because of her list of students from her own prior yoga studio—which she also ran into the ground. She abused her power and would give poor reviews and demotions at random to her “hit-list”’of teachers. She also had a “do not give any classes to these teacher” list that she distributed to the subsequent teacher mangers who took over after she was finally asked to step down. She was in charge of who got raises and who didn’t and ruined the overall morale for five years and YW did nothing about it. Yes, The pay is bad, and that’s an issue: but to have a toxic bully run an entire NYC district was a profound failure on YW’s part. Many teachers still refer to her dictator-like reign as the “dark ages” of yogaworks and the beginning of the end. She still teaches in a prime time slot—classes she gave to herself. When this article talks about unfair reviews and raises: that’s the job and role of the teacher manager. This is a wellness brand? A well respected yoga brand? That’s what happens when you mistreat teachers for too long. They rise! And, studios close. YW still allows her to teach? Shame on you, Yogaworks. Shame. On. You.

isn't it so weird? how hard is it for a massive corporation to offer some kind of health insurance to their workers. A lot of people work for Yoga Works which should mean that getting health insurance for them shouldn't be that expensive. cheap cheap cheap. every possible nickle to squeeze goes into the VC's pocket. isn't it good sense to invest in the people who work for you? when did that stop being a thing?

The irony is that Yoga Works just closed its SoHo studio. It has closed other NY spaces as well. It is almost impossible to make money in the current market, given the sheer glut of teachers and the predatory presence of "middle-men" such as Class Pass and Groupon, who turn students into Yoga "tourists" looking for the next best deal. Small studios can barely stay open these days and are closing all over the place in the face of ever higher rents and a student body that pays a fraction of the real class price due to the Class Pas and Groupon models--buy a class package for 50% off the studio price. The studio gets 25 cents on the dollar back. If the studio is ethical, that 25%, or about $5 goes to the teacher as part of a per capita incentive above the flat-rate/minimum-number-of-students for teaching. The studio gets nothing to cover rent and other costs. Once the deal expires, students go elsewhere for the next deal. Unions might work in the context of a corporate behemoth, but no small studio could withstand the wage demands. I can only express my deepest gratitude to the teachers at Yoga Union for sharing in the mission and bringing Yoga to those who want and need it. Alison West Yoga Union and Yoga Union Backcare & Scoliosis Center, NY NY Chair, Yoga for New York.org, representing NY State students, teachers and studios.

Can capitalism ever operate with a spiritual imperative? I don't know if that's one of the issues being raised by these teachers, but it's certainly implicit in what they are facing. The capitalist imperative is to increase profits for investors. The goal of yoga is the spiritual development of the student. When that teaching/spiritual goal is delivered through a traditional business model it's not surprising that these contradictions emerge. If YogaWorks is serious about what they do they will recognize that they have to create a different business model. This doesn't mean that there can't be a profit made. But how that profit is made and how workers are treated cannot follow the traditional path of most businesses, which is to reduce labor costs anyway possible. So far it looks like YogaWorks is reacting like any other capitalist enterprise. The idea that a union is somehow separate and distinct from the workers who are in it is an old trope that's been used by union busters for years. YogaWorks could pursue a different model. Possibly profit sharing or even some form of coop. But to do so they must realize that the purpose of money is to uplift humanity, not just to make more money.

I am a YogaWorks teacher in Boston. As of this minute, there has been no response to this article to its teachers on the part of YogaWorks, which I find stunning. They took over the studio where I had been teaching—I now make less money per class than I did before YogaWorks. No salary transparency. Little to no management. No leadership or inspiration from the company. If I could afford to open my own studio, I would in a heartbeat. I’m not entirely sure a union is the answer yet there has to be a different model so teachers are protected. Without its faculty, YogaWorks is nothing.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to unionizing. As an HR professional, my hope is always that management can work out fair compensation and benefits so that employees feel unionizing is not necessary. In this case, it appears the yoga teachers have seen conditions worsening, which is a real shame. I'm a long-time student of various YogaWorks locations and also friends with a lot of teachers. I see the struggle and support them being treated better, however that has to happen.

i only taught yoga for 1 year. mostly because i was also forced back into bartending/serving life (after having done it for 10 years and having sworn it off forever) to make ends meet. i did it because i wanted to give back, to do something meaningful and to help others. i dedicated myself to making $10/hour (because although you get paid ~$30 for teaching the class, you are required to do at least 2 extra hours of free work such as: cleaning the bathroom, watering plants, mopping the floors--and somehow the studio owner convinces you that it is your zen duty)... and on top of that you find yourself right back in the marketing world--only this time it's yourself you are having to sell. meanwhile corepower, yoga works, and the like are BANKING. it's pretty vile and disheartening so you just go back to corporate america, because at least you get health insurance! anyway--i am in full support of yoga teachers unionizing and i will be part of the cause! go team!

I happily pay for good instruction, every now and then and I look forward to periodic workshops. Mostly yoga-ing from home saves time commuting to and fro , changing, having to be on a fixed schedule, ... A few 4+ star dvd's from Amazon is worth a lot to me, dollar value wise and timewise.

Financial literacy for yoga teachers can also be developed with unions. I have always marveled at 21st century yogis willingly traveling to studios for $25 or less. I grew up in Australia, the most basic work conditions for part time employees is that you get paid for a minimum of 4 hours. That is sane and reasonable. I try to approach yoga teaching in the same way. 1 hour of teaching includes easily 2 hours of traveling plus one for prep, admin and marketing. In cities like New York one off classes need to be minimum $100 to reflect this reality. I always thought that the need for unionization could be filled by yoga alliance. However I’ve written to them asking about group health insurance for yoga teachers and didn’t even get a reply. All I got was a fill out this form / survey. A robotic protocol over conscious engaged human response. I recognize rents and overheads for running studios can be high. I hope collectively we can rise to the challenge and find equitable, thriving solutions for all of us. The unionization needs to be industry wide. My experience of NYC Parks is that they expect yoga teachers to volunteer. What craziness is this? They pay the other employees, why not yoga teachers? Seniors centers another employer of yoga teachers typically pay $60/class. At best a minimum wage proposition without medical, holidays etc etc We need a union desperately. I don’t mind corporate chains, I mind them when they exploit workers. Unionize!

Have to point out that “Yoga”, translated from Sanskrit to English literally, is “Union.”

I run a local studio. We pay more than most studios according to our teachers & would love to figure out a way to make it all work. My partner & I work over 55 hours apiece/ week (not asking for sympathy, just giving a sense of the work). Corepowers /Yogaworks popping up has hurt our biz (they opened closeby). We bring in $150k on a good year - but not consistently. Each year our rents & basically everything else goes up but the price of yoga stays same or lowers-so many free classes out there! ClassPass makes it worse. They cause more havoc then Groupon. Everyone uses them & if we dont, folks go to other places because it is cheaper. When someone uses CP, they pay less for their class then buying direct. We charge $20/class+ $12-$18 for classpacks. CP pays us $7-$8/student & we pay teachers $60-$90 based on length teaching + bonus. We host 5 classes/day and get 10-30 /class. One of the pro-union arguments that does not sit right is that teachers who've been teaching longest should get paid the most. I get how this makes sense but not our reality. Great teachers can be new or old. Today our most experienced teacher got 10/class & a new teacher 30. Both primetime. Our new teacher brought us revenue, and the older lost us $$. (We pay a teacher& manager for each class). One argument for more pay for more experienced teachers pointed to the university model. But university students don't choose their professor typically- so it is not a popularity contest like studios.

This is the same issue as for Uber drivers. The companies maintain that these teachers/drivers are independent contractors not employees and they are then exploited by the company. The contractors have a right to form a union but the cont has the right to not deal with the union. Too much cannon fodder, aka low bar to entry in the field. Customer needs to demand the teacher is fairly paid. It will make for a better relationship between the client and the studio and people will stick around longer. Might have to raise prices.

The essential problem in all of this is that anyone can call themselves a yoga teacher with or without a pittance of education in the 200 hour teacher training model. If they, through charisma, influence (social media) or reputation, can fill a room up they will have a job regardless of knowledge, experience. This is not at all like the same standards we use for other teachers eg school teachers. The business model of most yoga studios for 15 years plus has been to make money via the teacher trainings to cover their overhead, often losing money on public classes.. Ergo there is a glut of people who are "certified" as yoga teachers wanting to teach and pressing the wage down. In some situations, the teacher has to pay to teach as they try to build their class numbers up. If they give up their spot, there are plenty more willing to take their spot at a monetary loss.

YogaWorks is a rapacious corporate entity with little soul or connection to the yogic values they purport to embody and promote. Due to their expansion in recent years (like buying up yoga studios like the seven Yoga Tree studios in San Francisco) they have been raising prices for students well above the rate of inflation to satisfy their investors. None of this bounty has trickled down to the instructors, who teach for a pittance. Unionization will help rectify the situation where a teacher is paid $60 for a 1.5 hour class of 30 or more students who are charged on average at least $15/each for a total revenue of $450 or more. Not fair at all.

As a long time yoga teacher I have so many thoughts and feeling on this. I say good on those employed by corporate entities, I hope they make some strides in unionizing and insuring better treatment for themselves. Many teachers willing live an extremely modest lifestyle in order to teach, and work long erratic hours, yet are joyous and generous in sharing in what they know with students. They can often be up against demoralizing circumstances of being treated like a commodity, rather than a person of value, insights and worth. And to boot now we're supposed to pitch and sell all the time. The whole industry can be soul crushing at times, if you think about it too much.

My daughter has been teaching yoga for 15 years in Michigan. Six years ago when she was about to give birth to my granddaughter her students attended one class in which they donated $$ for her maternity leave. Such generosity but hardly sustainable. She has since organized yoga retreats to exotic locations and taken on private lessons with more pay. The studios here are packed with students they keep the pay low by offering teacher training twice a year at a higher cost then a semester of college. And people pay. This system keeps a surplus of ready teachers. Unionize for sure!

Why don't these ladies start their own studio? Sounds like a better way to make a living, being your own boss.

It’s about time. Core Power Yoga has never paid their teacher a fair wage. I am all for Fair profits but greed again got in the way.

UNIONS form when folks are getting the shaft. NO other reason. Yoga is one example.

Unions provide many important benefits to workers and companies; professionalism, workers having a say in working conditions and schedules, and something sorely lacking in the yoga community, staff development or continued training within the studio during teaching, meaning regular periodic input from students who provide feedback on the teachers skill to teach. A professional improved protocol for hiring new teachers could be established. Unions can offer help in yoga studios providing a forum to communicate injuries to the studio that occur in class so the studio can offer help in how to treat the injury or prevent it in the future. I have had a number of injuries in yoga class myself. Unions can offer teachers training to work with new practitioners to develop their own goals and pace themselves in their beginning practice so yoga is more than physical fitness and a solid foundation can be established in their practice. Unions can be a win win situation for teachers, the studio, and practitioners as well.

Hey, I take yoga and tai-chi classes. Let them unionize. HR is not looking out for the employee/contractor. It's there for the company. I'm a professional recruiter. I've been on the inside. Unionize!

Upward Facing Workers of the World Unite!

Interesting timing for this article. YogaWorks Soho (NYC) and Hollywood (LA) locations are both closing in 2 weeks. Some teachers were not informed of the closing by the company, they found out through the grapevine. There was no severance or plan for these teachers who have reliably shown up to teach, many of them for 10+ years, in exchange for their reliable paycheck. Now they are scrambling to figure out how they will pay their bills. Perhaps a union (as un-yogic as it seems) would prevent YogaWorks management from making such contemptuous decisions.

As an instructor who has been an employee of YogaWorks for 2 decades, I fully support unionizing. I've given the company the most productive years of my life, and I've seen few opportunities to grow my career, let alone protect my interests, within their employment structure. I find myself competing for jobs with teachers who have been teaching a tenth as long as I have. In Los Angeles, senior teachers were given a "pay freeze" ten years ago and none of us have been allowed to seek a pay raise since then, despite the cost of living increasing, exponentially, in our city. Thus the only way to pay the bills is to try and add more classes to our teaching schedules-- an exhausting proposition for an aging worker in a physical profession. As I face down the end of middle age, it would be a relief to know that the years and energy I've put in to helping build this company held something for me in return. Perhaps unionizing will accomplish that, perhaps not. But it's worth investigating.

From reading the article it seems rather than a union, YogaWorks just needs better management. It’s not difficult to come up with a policy for compensation, benefits, performance evaluation, class standards, and shift scheduling. Someone just need to do it.

If unionization takes hold, I could see some yoga studios, especially the bigger ones, move to making their teachers 1099 contractors rather than deal with wages, benefits, etc. under a union regime.

So how much are you willing to pay for that yoga class? $75? $100? $150? Just saying......