Senior Capstone Project• Spring 2026
Inside The CorePower Yoga Instructors’ Strike
A call for employees at a national yoga chain to go on strike in February brought instructors’ wages and studio cleanliness to the forefront of discussion. Calls to organise and unionise were reminiscent of past grievances with the company. Research and investigation found that these complaints were a byproduct of private equity’s growing investment in boutique fitness studios.
The r/CorePowerYoga subreddit was abuzz as the new year approached. A highly upvoted image asked that the community “Stand together for a better studio experience,” calling for increased pay for instructors and deep cleaning the studios more frequently. A MoveOn petition was posted in the comments.
Social media and traditional news platforms chimed in, too. A TikTok video in support of the instructors drew 305,000 views. The Cut wrote an article about a potential February strike. And in Minneapolis, a tense altercation between CorePower Yoga members and corporate employees over attempts to silence instructors was captured in another semi-viral TikTok video. “We are looking for the corporations we give our dollars to, to stand up for what we believe in,” a protester said.
A national strike never materialized, but there was enough hubbub to force the company to partially meet some demands as February loomed. The situation at one of the largest yoga chains in the country, with more than 220 studios, highlights a multimillion-dollar (or even multibillion) fitness and wellness industry that employees and critics say has exploited employees, offered inadequate facilities, and abandoned yoga’s original purpose to maximize profits from a lucrative U.S market. The complaints against CorePower Yoga, which is owned by a private equity firm – TSG Consumer Partners – also exemplify a unique business development: the rapidly expanding role of these firms in the fitness industry’s growth.
So, what exactly happened during the month that instructors were allegedly on strike? How did a nationwide yoga chain become the backdrop of a strike?
Tice found yoga after a disastrous rock-climbing accident in 1999 shattered both his ankles. His injury led to him joining the ranks of 5% of Americans who actively maintained a yoga practice in the United States as a form of active rehabilitation. As of 2024, up to 37.64 million Americans participate in yoga or a meditation ritual, according to Statista. Today, the market for yoga and mat-based Pilates classes are on track to generate $297 billion in revenue by 2034. At CorePower, the yoga movement taught is designed by Tice himself, based off inspired by power yoga, ashtanga yoga, and Bikram yoga. Today, CorePower Yoga offers a variety of class formats, incorporating Pilates-inspired classes and strength training in formats such as Yoga Sculpt, and CorePower Strength X.
In 2024, the yoga industry alone was projected to be worth $215 billion by 2025. CorePower Yoga is a large player in that market. But besides yoga instruction, CorePower also sells merchandise in-studio, yoga pants, sports bras, yoga mats and more emblazoned with the yellow and orange circles that have become synonymous with the company. CorePower also charges for mat usage, and towel usage, especially pertinent for users who take their heated class formats to maintain grip on their mats during a sun salutation sequence. To deepen one’s practice, CorePower also offers teacher training certifications, as well as certifications in its specific class formats, such as Sculpt, Hot Power Fusion and Strength X. Employees and members do not receive waived training fees but are offered discounts instead. In New York City, their 200-hour yoga teacher training costs $3,599.
The COVID-19 pandemic helped usher in a new wave of yoga and Pilates enthusiasts, due to its accessibility. “…during the pandemic, Pilates and low impact strength training became the like became like the best way to work out because you could do it from your home. You didn't need crazy things you could use soup cans for light, dumbbells if you needed any.”, said Rob Cadiz Saldarriaga, certified Pilates instructor and [solidcore] senior master coach. Google search data shows that searches for yoga and “yoga with Adrienne”, a yoga instructor who posts guided lessons on how to do yoga at home on YouTube peaked in popularity in April 2020, at the height of COVID-19 lockdowns across the United States.
“I will say that definitely a lot of yoga influencers that like really blew up online during the pandemic because yoga is something that with like good instruction and a mat you can just do it at home. I also think that the mental health benefits of yoga are very significant as well.” Natalia Mehlman-Petzrela, Professor of History at The New School and author of Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession.
“So particularly in something like the pandemic, when there is this majorly stressful thing going on, people are looking for forms of stress relief,” Google search data shows that searches for yoga and “yoga with Adrienne”, a yoga instructor who posts guided lessons on how to do yoga at home on YouTube peaked in popularity in April 2020.
In 2017, CorePower Yoga settled a class action lawsuit for $1.65 million. In the lawsuit filed by William Walsh, a former employee. Walsh alleged that workers employed by CorePower yoga as a part of the Studio Experience Team (SET) program were underpaid, as they had to spend a significant amount of their pay on a discounted membership as a condition of their employment, resulting in their pay being below that of federal minimum wage ($7.25 in 2017).
The SET program was introduced by CorePower Yoga in 2015, replacing the Yoga for Trade program that was subsequently phased out. Yoga for Trade program participants who transitioned to the SET program no longer could take classes for free. Instead, they had to contribute a significant portion of the money they earned through cleaning shifts towards a SET-specific discounted membership.
In 2019, Effie Morgenstern, a former CorePower Yoga instructor, filed a class action lawsuit against CorePower Yoga, accusing the company of failing to compensate employees for the hours worked. It was the fourth lawsuit faced by CorePower yoga regarding its chronic underpayment of its employees. More than 2,000 instructors at CorePower joined Morgenstern in filing the lawsuit against CorePower Yoga, claiming that the company had not paid instructors the wages they were entitled to under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). CorePower Yoga began implementing set sequences into their training soon after.
Instructors are expected to show up to the studio 30 minutes before their scheduled class time and stay for 30 minutes after before they can clock out. “You weren't paid for the 30 minutes before or the 30 minutes after,” recounts Morgenstern. When Morgenstern was teaching in Chicago in 2019, she was paid $23.00 to teach a single class at CorePower. “… if it was the morning you had to turn on all the studios, make sure they were hot. You had like a regular checklist to do in the morning.” The lawsuit also claimed that instructors were not paid for expected duties outside of classes, such as sequencing, creating a playlist and more. CorePower agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle the lawsuit.
These numerous responsibilities were not what Morgenstern or most instructors were expecting when they accepted the position of instructor at CorePower Yoga. “I expected to like come in, socialize with the students, teach the class, and leave.”
To minimise how much time she was unpaid for at the studio, Morgenstern would go out of her way to teach consecutive classes at her studio. “Because you were unpaid for those 30 minutes, I would try to teach a class that was like 5:30 to 6:30. [the] 30 minutes was 6:30 to 7:00. And if the next class started at 7:00, then I was only unpaid for 30 minutes. I tried to overlap my classes back-to-back, which means they all had to be different formats.”
By the time Morgenstern left the company, it was no longer possible to do so. “But that ended up changing at the end too. They wouldn't allow people to do that towards the end of the time I left [CorePower].”
CorePower Yoga has faced criticism for its rapid expansion and disregard for the traditional practises of yoga. A look at the class schedule for two weeks in May 2026 at CorePower’s Greenwich Village location in New York City, referred to as The Village on their website, shows that across 2 weeks, a sculpt class is offered 129 times, 11 Strength X classes, 61 C2 classes, two hot power fusion classes. There are no classes offered that are C1 or C1.5 level, meditation etc, even though C1 and meditation are classes designated as traditional vinyasa flow classes according to their website.
A 2024 Forbes article writes that CorePower has capitalised on the recent uptake in strength training, having “embraced this trend with popular classes like Yoga Sculpt and Strength X, which integrate yoga practice with weight training and high-intensity cardio for maximum calorie burn.
When yoga poses, sequences and mantras are removed from the original contexts and fused together to create a sequence, it rings hollow to people taking the class. “The way that a CorePower class is taught is less about the actual practice of yoga, and it feels like the instructor is just coming up with stuff,” said Caroline Rose Kenlon (@CRINthecity), who has documented and reviewed the various workout classes in New York City. “CorePower just feels like a mish mash of everything, with a lot of instructors and trying to suck as much money as they can out of the practice of yoga.”
“I think that people are more interested in yoga as a workout. That can mean a variety of things – sculpt, flow, mat with weights, all the stuff. And there's nothing wrong with any of that, but I just I don't think people are interested in pursuing yoga.” Kristen Rae Stevens, a longtime yoga instructor, said.
Devi’s first classes in the United States occurred in Los Angeles in 1947, shortly after World War II. She began attracting many clients, including prominent celebrity clients such as Gloria Swanson. Devi’s published books, “Forever Young, Forever Healthy”, a self-help book she published in 1953 and “Yoga for Americans” an instructional guide published in 1959 and her accompanying book tours helped drive the popularity of yoga in the United States.
Pop culture’s embrace of yoga as an exercise practise, such as the now-infamous O.C’s 2008 “Yogalates” spoof and endorsements from celebrities such as Madonna in the promotion of her 1998 album “Ray of Light” led to its endearment as an exercise mainstay. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a Professor of History, at The New School and author of “FIT NATION: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession” (2022) recounts that “When I was doing interviews for Fit Nation, there were these gym managers that said after that show, everybody was coming in saying, we want to take Yogalates, we don't know what that is, but we saw it on TV”.
“Madonna has a big role in that. Madonna had this album called Ray of Light, and she talks about how yoga has not only given her all of this enlightenment and sort of new perspectives on herself in the world, but also great arms that a lot of people want.” The numerous celebrity endorsements of yoga not only as a mentally stimulating practice but also as a physical workout began to outpace its image as an “acceptable bourgeoise hobby” on retreats for women.
Petrzela also writes that “In the wake of 9/11, yoga and programs that emphasized “the mind- body connection” boomed as many Americans exhibited a growing interest (and willingness to spend) on healing and “wellness.” This further codified yoga as an acceptable exercise or rehabilitative modality that would not only enhance one’s fitness but also cultivate better mind-body connection.
Yoga and mat-based workouts are often marketed towards women. “Two things that really push those are one – that they are thought to cultivate long lean muscles that zre very different from like weightlifting, for example. They are also, thought to be sort of promoting traditional feminine virtues. They tend to be quieter. They tend to be more controlled. The sort of classic example of a yoga body or a Pilates body is slim. So, those things in our culture [in] the US have led yoga and Pilates to be especially promoted to women,” Melman-Petrzela concludes.
Private Equity’s Interest in Boutique Fitness
Private equity’s interest in boutique fitness and wellness is a relatively new development. “a function of the last 10, 15 years or so. [Private Equity] changed [the fitness industry] because prior to that, you had some big gym chains, but a lot of them were franchises and they tended to be run by family businesses or trainers,” said Melman-Petrzela. In his 2016 book, Sweat Equity, Jason Kelly, head of bureau chief at Bloomberg notes that “the growth of the fitness industry has tracked the growth and expansion of the private equity, which now accounts for more than $3 trillion in assets around the world.”
A decade after Sweat Equity’s publication, private equity is forecasted to take up $7.5 trillion of the market share in 2026 and up to $20.2 trillion by 2034, according to a report published by Fortune Business Insights. In addition, when members of luxury gym chain, Equinox, retained their memberships despite the recession it signalled to investors and operators that health and wellness remained a financial necessity in their lifestyles.
“It must have been 2018 or 2017. I went to a wellness and fitness summit run by Well + Good, which was a very, very popular blog at the time where I used to write [for]…you had basically all of the practitioners - the instructors, the consumers, the editors of this blog were all women. And then there were all these guys in suits there and I was like, who are these guys? They were all private equity investors who were there to see what, like the next hot thing was.” Melman-Petrzela recounts.
One of the most significant private equity ventures into the boutique fitness market occurred in 2011. SoulCycle, the cult-like spin workout studio based in founded in New York City in 2006, was acquired by Equinox that year. Equinox, which had started as a high-end gym concept in New York City was bought by Related Companies, a real estate developer in 2005 after a sale from North Castle group. Related helped scale SoulCycle into more studios from its original six locations in New York City.
“It was kinda explosive”, recounts Louise Gassman, a former instructor on Cult of Body and Soul, a podcast centred around the culture surrounding SoulCycle released in 2025. “It was like every other month; another studio opened for like four months. And then we had to wait and see how these markets would grow and change. But it was super exciting, and it felt like there was just a little buzz happening.” SoulCycle proliferated the stratosphere of boutique fitness from 2011-2016, operating 99 studios at its peak in the United States, Toronto and London with 300,000 unique riders. However, this rapid expansion didn’t come without its drawbacks.
“When you have to churn out instructors, more instructors, training groups every four weeks, or whatever it may be, like that is a really tough thing to do, because the question is, is there that much talent out there? Or can you churn out that much talent?” Jon Stein, a frequent SoulCycle rider asks on the podcast.
“There was definitely a flavor change when we transitioned into Equinox,” recalls former instructor Stevie Santangelo on the podcast. In 2016, it was also announced that the two founders of SoulCycle, Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice were leaving SoulCycle. “During that acquisition, it was really bumpy…and a lot of questions – where’s the brand going to go? Are we going to be able to maintain this? Who’s going to be the person we look up to?”
Such growing pains seem to be par for the course when private equity enters the conversation for boutique fitness companies and begin rapidly scaling up businesses. In Megan Greenwell’s 2025 book, Bad Company, she notes that on average private equity firms own companies for seven years before they are sold. “they’re trying to sell for profit, not grow the business over the course of decades. Investing in research and development, improving products or services, ramping up sales strategies– these are all years long processes”, which private equity companies are reluctant to devote resources to.
Cutting costs in day-to-day operations provides almost instantaneous windfall. Morgenstern recalls that when she had first started as an instructor at CorePower Yoga in 2015, co-workers who had been there longer “were still talking about the old pay structure,” where instructors reportedly made closer to $45 per class instead of the $23 Morgenstern was familiar with. CorePower also began charging for things such as mats and towels, equipment that was essential to the class. “[CorePower] used to have free tampons and Q-tips and you could get a towel without having to pay for it. And the mats were free. But shortly after I joined, the towels you had to pay $1 and the mats you had to pay for, like everything, was monetized about two years after I got in.”
But CorePower wasn’t the first yoga studio with large franchise ambitions. In the early 2000s, not long after CorePower was founded, there was a race to see which yoga studio could be franchised into the first national chain. YogaWorks was one of them.
In 2017, YogaWorks became the first yoga studio chain to go public on the stock market, a move that CEO Rosanna McCollough lauded as the “ultimate democratization of yoga.” In an interview with Yoga Journal shortly after. Part of YogaWork’s quick expansion was also due to it acquiring small, independently operated yoga studios and rebranding them as YogaWorks studios. “they had teachers who were their core teachers to kind of represent the brand. [they] would go to these locations. They would try to find people in those locations that were going to maintain those studios.” Stevens recalls in an interview.
YogaWorks’ scaling led to an influx of teachers that had to be trained to teach in a format consistent across all studios. Even in the early transition from Be Yoga to YogaWorks, management pushed for standardisation in teaching pedagogy. “They were trying to be real soft about it …we're going to do this thing called a bridge program… this is how we're going to teach going forward. So we've got some people from LA that are going to show you language. There was a lot of tension …when people are trying to say this is how you should teach and this is what you should say.”
Stevens has a decades-long career in the wellness industry, spanning kinesiology, yoga, Ayurvedic medicine and beyond. A dancer by training, Stevens discovered yoga as a “natural extension” of her studies in anatomy, kinesiology and somatic movement therapy, especially in relation to her own medical history and injuries. She began studying yoga under the gurukul system, a traditional system that entailed sustained, long-term study between student and teacher. Stevens began teaching students even before the formation of the Yoga Alliance in 1997. “I got the ERYT (Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher) 500 [hour] status pretty quickly because I was able to show how much I was teaching and what my profession was.”
“They started doing a ton of teacher trainings, because they were trying to get people to showcase their brand– in Kansas City, in LA, in Lake Tahoe – that's when their brand development started really becoming like a thing.”
“That's when teachers started to get really annoyed because there's no there's no opportunity for growth, there's no opportunity for development…you're expanding the company, but then you're leaving all of these employees behind.”
The shift for Stevens was also documented in her tax forms. She was moved from employee status to an independent contractor status, which essentially meant that YogaWorks would not have to pay for benefits such as health insurance, if she was ever scheduled for enough classes to meet full-time employee status. “They were increasing the “rates”. We're paying you more money, but started stripping away any benefits, any security, any like stability in, scheduling.” As one of the more tenured and experienced teachers at YogaWorks, Stevens only had two midday classes on the schedule per week.
“But then they started stripping away any kind of benefits, any kind of security, any kind of like stability in, scheduling…that became something that became, I think, a model for multiple industries. And that's where the organizing crossover happened.”
The meeting frustrated the 135 teachers who were working at YogaWorks at the time. “The manager was very clearly like toeing the corporate line and wasn't really taking our complaints all that seriously.” Recalls Stevens. To add on to the frustration, the high turnover rate for managers, who were full time employees, raised more questions than answers. “Managers kept getting hired and quitting. Because obviously, things were going on behind the scenes, and so we were getting upset as teachers.”
A letter sent to the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency on 4 June 2017 alleged that wage statements sent to YogaWorks employees did not comply with the California Labor Code. YogaWorks would eventually settle the class-action suite for the maximum amount of $865,000 on August 7, 2017. In 2017, YogaWorks had over 2,000 employees, of which over 700 were part-time.
After the meeting, the teachers began meeting amongst themselves, which were done outside of teaching hours. Stevens described teaching yoga as “very much an isolated, practice.”, as instructors typically only interacted with the students that were in their classes while working, and rarely got facetime with other instructors who taught at the studio. This was especially rare, for yoga instructors, as they typically juggled work across multiple studios to make ends meet “you rarely get an opportunity to work with colleagues.” She said.
“We started having secret meetings with each other and then with the labor [unions] and there was a little bit of media attention.” Stevens recalls. Eventually, the YogaWorks teachers worked with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) to organize and make formalise the union. “The Machinists’ union were really excited about working with us because they were actually looking to work with a lot of people who were 10-99 [status]. They were working with a lot of industries that were disrupted.” Stevens said of their union partnership.
When employees try to unionise, they can go about it in different ways. “It's much easier to do this with an established labour union than to try to form an independent union because it's helpful to have the resources – like a professional staff organizer working with you, and to have like legal support,” said Ben Bennett, deputy organizing director at Workers United.
During the organizing process, the instructors learnt about how their experiences with the company were exceedingly dissimilar. “As teachers, we learned about, who was being paid what. We learned about the inconsistencies of pay, the inconsistencies of opportunity,” Stevens recalls. The New York Times reported that instructors at YogaWorks were making a range of $35 to $100 per class but were not given clear criteria on how to get a raise. “You were supposed to be able to have a manager come to your class, give you a review and then give you a raise. I don't think I had ever gotten a teacher's review ever. I can't remember one person who came to my class ever to give me a raise.” Stevens recalls.
On 9 September 2019, the IAM filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on behalf of the YogaWorks Teachers to hold union representation elections. To file for a union election, at least 30% of the employees that would be represented in the union would have to sign their union authorisation card. YogaWorks did try to discourage employees from unionising, from discouraging teachers form signing union cards, to stating that the company did not believe that a union would be beneficial for the teachers or the community at YogaWorks.
Despite YogaWork’s union busting efforts, on 19 September 2019, a majority of YogaWorks teachers voted “yes” to joining the IAM and forming a unit for YogaWorks instructors. This was also the first union for yoga teachers in the United States. Their campaign had drawn support from prominent political figures, such as Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The unit began the bargaining process with YogaWorks soon after. While organizing, they were coming together on causes such as benefits and a pay structure. “We started drawing up, health benefits, pay and work opportunities, seniority.” Stevens said. However, a few months after, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. In April 2020, YogaWorks decided to close all five studios in New York City. “We actually went from bargaining for this 135 teachers’ Committee to bargaining for severance packages and for payouts.”
“I think that the work that we did could have been a really awesome model. The fact that we were able to even be there at the time to help land the severance, I think gave people –not a lot, but some buffer and some support during a difficult time.”
During the pandemic, there were bursts of organizing amongst fitness instructors, however, those efforts seem to have lost momentum.
CorePower offers a variety of teacher training programs, ranging from 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) training to specific trainings for their other class formats, which include 50-hour Sculpt, Hot Power Fusion and Strength X certifications. CorePower’s teacher training programs certify students to teach similar programs outside of CorePower yoga studios, and their 200-hour RYT and 300-hour advanced practitioner trainings are also certified by the Yoga Alliance.
Morgenstern recalls that teachers were often asked to promote the teacher training program to members after class. A 2019 New York Times article states that CorePower “enlists teachers as salespeople and incentivizes them with bonuses.” Often, teacher training is pitched as an extension of one’s yoga practice, by being able to lead other students into the mental and physical nirvana of yoga. Morgenstern recalls that she was “always talking to people about the classes, always had to talk about the classes that were going to be run. We have teacher training coming up just if you want to take it.” I really tried not to ever bring it up, but some people would ask about it.”
It is not uncommon to pay for yoga certifications, since they are accepted at yoga studios if the training is registered with the Yoga Teachers’ Alliance. Mu did her 200-hour certification with CorePower Yoga during the COVID-19 pandemic. “They discount teacher training based on whether or not you have a CorePower membership… if you sign up early, you get a discount. If you pay in full etc” she remembers.
However, completing the training does not guarantee a teaching position at CorePower Yoga. Both Mu and Morgenstern all recall an audition process that took place after their respective training cohorts graduated. “What they mean is you will get two classes and anything else you're going to be hunting for,” said LeRoy Gordon a former CorePower instructor based in Chicago. “I didn't know until basically the very end of the process what studios were available and what times that what studios were available. So it's a little bit risky”, according to Paulina Ferrari, a CorePower Yoga Sculpt instructor and [solidcore] coach based in New York City.
After passing the audition process, CorePower offers minimal guidance for new instructors. “Honestly, it’s not very comprehensive at all in terms of actually setting you up to be able to teach a good class, like you kind of learn as you go… it's not feedback-driven.” Mu recalls her teaching experience at CorePower Yoga. “It was not, um, a ton of preparation in terms of what you would actually be expected to do”, Gordon says.
Instructors were also provided with little knowledge on how far their non-teaching duties would go.” It was not a ton of preparation in terms of what you would actually be expected to do- which is run the studio in between and after your class. [it’s] not a huge deal in most cases, but I know multiple times it was just me there.” Little employee support was also offered when employees had to open or close the studio by themselves. “it was like our responsibility to go in after someone if they seem suspicious.”, Morgenstern recalls. “a lot of people don't lock things up.”
Past Organizing Efforts at CorePower Yoga
In 2019, Morgenstern joined over 2000 other instructors in filing a class-action lawsuit against CorePower Yoga, alleging that the company did not pay employees enough to meet minimum wage requirements.
Morgenstern realized that she was only getting paid for an hour for one of the class formats she taught, when the class lasted an hour and 15 minutes. Instructors were not compensated for the 30 minutes before and after class they had to remain in the studio for at this time. When she brought up the discrepancy in pay to her studio manager at the time, Morgenstern recalls “she told me she wasn't going to pay me… I emailed everybody in every studio - California, Maryland, every studio in America, Seattle. Wherever there was a studio at the time I emailed, I emailed every single class list that I could get my hands on and told everybody that they were getting underpaid.” In a New
In the 2019 New York Times article discussing the lawsuit Morgenstern filed, Morgenstern also mentioned that she intended to form a union consisting of her and other CorePower Yoga instructors. With the chronic underpayment and lack of improvement in working conditions, organizing and forming a union became the most logical steps to Morgenstern. “It was an accumulation. …There was no, there was no standard, there was like loosely a HR team, no standard of protection [for employees]” Morgenstern said.
Many instructors Morgenstern emailed responded enthusiastically to Morgenstern’s email. She heard back from instructors in Minnesota, one of CorePower’s oldest markets. “A lot of people reached out on Facebook and were very supportive…People from the ACLU said if we needed support, they would give it to me. [the] president of the teachers’ union. But it was like the president of the Teamsters or something like that. They said that they could help. A lot of people were very supportive of it,” she recalls.
CorePower would eventually agree to settle the class-action lawsuit for $1.5 million. However, the company was less than enthusiastic on the idea of their instructors unionising. Soon after The New York Times article was published, CorePower Yoga sent emails to employees to dissuade them from forming one. “It was definitely odd for me to go back to work and want to teach classes and stuff… [CorePower] put out all the, they put out like anti-union propaganda everywhere, basically.” Morgenstern says.
“They basically said like we were, that they treated us the best they were ever going to treat us, because no other studio was ever going to be better. [CorePower] was the best studio…we had the most classes, the most ability to teach, we have a hold on the market.”
Little did she know, as Morgenstern was organizing her colleagues and fellow instructors at CorePower Yoga, the unionisation effort at YogaWorks was underway in New York City in 2019.
However, the death knell for Morgenstern’s unionisation efforts came when CorePower sent out an email asking employees to indicate if they were interested in joining a union, describing it as “a sign-up sheet, basically. They posted it where everybody could see it like not in an embarrassing way, but not an anonymous way…they said, sign this if you want to be [in] a union and sign this, if you don't want to be [in] a union. So it was very not anonymous and nobody got any say.” Eventually, the effort fizzled out. Morgenstern stopped teaching at CorePower Yoga in 2019.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a series of events led to a renewed interest in organizing. CorePower had laid off a significant amount of its staff, with little notice on whether they would be employed afterwards, the murder of George Floyd and unorganized studio reopenings. CorePower instructors began speaking with union organizers and even began the card signing process towards the end of 2020 into 2021.
Unsurprisingly, CorePower continued to dissuade employees from organizing. In response to the organizing efforts in 2021, former Chief Yoga Officer, Helen Peterson, sent an email to employees dismissing the merits of a union for yoga instructors. “Most importantly, a union’s interest is not aligned with our shared passion. We come to work every day excited about the opportunity to positively impact people’s lives through the transformative power of yoga. This aspiration unites us all into a community of people working toward a common mission. A union has no such aspiration. Their goal is to expand membership and make a profit from our employees’ union dues”.” Unfortunately, CorePower’s efforts successfully stalled the organizing momentum organizers’ plans, as the link to the site https://www.cpyunion.org/ is no longer functional.
Peterson’s emphasis on “shared passion” is commonplace in the boutique fitness industry, which relies heavily on their employee’s dedication for community to attract and retain members. “All the fitness instructors that I know are doing it because they love group fitness, they love teaching, they love group classes,” said Kenlon.
Most fitness instructors do not maintain full time employment at a single studio. They often juggle multiple studios and modalities to make a sustainable income, especially in high cost of living cities where boutique fitness classes and memberships command an eye-wateringly high price.
None of the current or former employees interviewed for this article could envision the possibility of working full-time for CorePower on an instructor’s compensation rate, let alone without benefits. Not only are the hourly rates low for work done, it is also hard to come by a consistent schedule that would support that many classes.
“The overrepresentation of women in the most visible but vulnerable independent- contractor roles in the industry means that despite the proclamations of empowerment that are crucial to cultivating a following, they are often misunderstood to be working “just for fun” or for “extra cash.” Melman Petrzela notes in Fit Nation. A majority of employees at CorePower are female.
In a 2025 Frontiers of Psychology report, it found that an overwhelming majority of yoga practitioners at CorePower Yoga were female (87%), and college-educated (90%). The survey did not disclose if they were members or instructors.
In “Bad Company”, Megan Greenwell writes that “private equity firms own companies for an average of seven years; they’re trying to sell for a profit, not grow the business over the course of decades. Investing in research and development, improving products or services, ramping up sales strategies– these are all years long processes" that private equity companies are unwilling to devote resources to.
However, consumers are not unaware of its influence or impact. On Reddit, dedicated subreddits for boutique fitness studios are active, often rife with questions from those curious about the studio and veteran members, or even employees responding under the anonymity of their reddit handle. “They seem to be really in tune with what's going on behind the business. They know who the CEO is, they know who the former CEO is, they know all the changes.” Said Courtney Rehfeldt, a senior reporter at Athletech News. The r/Corepower subreddit has 17,300 visitors a week, r/Barrysbootcamp has about 11,500 visitors weekly, and r/Solidcore has 46,000 visitors a week.
“That surprises me that they're on Reddit talking about it, and they're able to say, it changed after so and so took over. They're aware of any of the coverage that comes out.” She continued.
A recent subreddit hot topic on r/Corepower has been the studio refreshes. Online, there is no mention of the studio refreshes on CorePower’s website. “They're closing each studio for two, two and a half weeks, and standardizing things.” Said Ferrari about studios in New York City. There were no explicit details communicated to members or staff on the changes or what could be expected from newly refreshed studios. “I don't think that was communicated to us. Even for my studio, when I've asked my manager what's changing? … I don't think there's clear answers right now. It's just like an expectation that it's supposed to be deep cleaned, repainted, repaneled and refloored in our lobby.”
Members have taken to social media to express their disappointment and frustrations at the refreshes. A TikTok video posted by @shannonthewhite asks “you’re telling me they closed for three weeks just to put a neon sign in the front lobby?” She proceeds to list out more grievances “like the floors were disgusting, the workout room wasn’t changed. The only thing that’s bene changed is the front lobby that the members don’t even use?”, posted on 15 April after the Flatiron studio was reopned. In the comments, other users also agree with the refreshed studios being underwhelming and not meeting the expectations that they had. To add on to the frustration, members were unable to take classes with fewer spots open. “I mean, it's impossible to get into a class.”
When interviewed, Ferrari’s home studio, NoMad was closed for the refresh. Instructors were not provided with classes they could teach to make up for the classes impacted by the studio refresh. “if you want, you can ask to be a sub at other studios and get approved, but you have to have your class audited and signed off on, to make sure that it's up to standard, so to speak,” which was not guaranteed as there were fewer classes to fill in “I’m, lucky enough where that's not going to not make ends meet, but I can't say the same for other people.”
What Ferrari missed most about the studios being closed was the community she had managed to gather in her permanent class times. “I think not being able to be on the schedule…it's tough. My students even DM me on Instagram with “oh my God, like, when are you subbing?” I cannot get a class, I'm trying, but there's nothing for me to pick up that is not in the middle of the day. That just becomes a little bit of a bummer.”
If such local refresh results can cause such a stir online, perhaps it should come as little surprise then that the strike began taking shape on r/CorePower and r/CorePowerYogaTeachers. As the demands for higher pay for employees, regular studio deep cleanings made their rounds, users that were allegedly members expressed their shock at the simplicity of the demands.
Dissatisfaction with the CorePower seems to always simmer beneath the surface of the bright yellow lighting and heated studios. On reddit, posts that detail dirty studios are often rife with comments echoing similar sentiments for their respective studios.
“Towards the end of the year, November, December” Ferrari said when asked when she first heard about the call to go on strike “I feel like we just heard rumours, but there's always rumours. Because when you're getting paid $20 [per hour], a lot of people were unhappy with that.”
Prior to January 1st 2026, CorePower Yoga instructors in New York City made $20/hour. Under a new wage model shared by CorePower Yoga, that was increased to $25/hour beginning 1 January 2026. On 1 March 2026, it was further increased to $29/hour. The price of a single drop-in class at CorePower Yoga has remained the same at $40 a class.
There is an unspoken expectation that clients expect their instructors to be paid more than they paid for the class. “Fitness instructors going on strike would mean to me that something is really wrong because I feel like so many fitness instructors really love what they do.”, said Kenlon, who attends group fitness classes multiple times a week. “So for them to not want to teach means there has to be like a serious problem with the, higher ups and management not treating them well, or conditions being really bad or payment not being what it should be. So it's just an indicator that like CorePower is doing something wrong” she concludes.
In New York City, a drop-in class at CorePower Yoga costs $40, higher than the average cost of a drop-in class at other smaller yoga studios in the city, such as the Yoga Box ($32.00), Y7 ($32.00). An unlimited monthly membership at these studios is also cheaper than one at CorePower Yoga ($259/monthly), compared to $209 (Y7) and $169 (Yoga Box). Each studio at CorePower Yoga can hold anywhere from 30-40 students at a time.
From that amount of revenue made, the instructor only receives $58.00, about 4.1% of the class revenue for a class at full capacity. This figure fails to account for the 30 minutes before and after class instructors are required to pay for. This drops it down to $29 per hour. Using this new hourly wage, an instructor would have to teach over a hundred classes to break even on the amount of money paid towards their teacher training certification at CorePower Yoga, not including any time spent outside of class. “the thing that took me the most time was honestly figuring out the playlist, because the playlist sort of structured my class for me… I would say like 30 minutes to an hour,” said Mu.
Other comments also noted that the increases also aligned with minimum wage requirements coming into effect this year, “my raise will bring me from $18.30 to $19.80. Minimum wage in Denver is $19.29/hour as of 2026.”, a user commented in the r/CorePowerYogaTeachers subreddit.
Online, instructors also chimed in. A TikTok posted on 8 January this year by an instructor, @orlev was captioned with “I think the instructor strike buzz is working because CorePower just gave us a raise.” According to her profile, Orlev teaches in New York City.
Two months later, in March, CorePower announced another round of raises for instructors. Citing a wage progression adjustment, amongst other metrics. “…We went from $20 to $25 for like two or three months. we were $28 or $29 starting 1 March,” said Ferrari, who still teaches in New York City. In addition, in the New York City locations, they said that they would be piloting a new Front Desk Associate position, writing in an email sent to instructors that the employees in the position would “focus on cultivating hospitality and ensuring a stellar studio experience.”, as well as “operating the front desk; welcoming and assisting students;” addressing some of the grievances instructors had with the administrative workload of the position.
One of the points also brought up in various posts were about compensating instructors for the number of people in their class once more than 10 people were in the class. The pay rate remains stagnant for instructors throughout their time, and there are no tiers or clear paths to promotions or raises instructors can follow. There has not been any move to address this.
In many other large, national boutique fitness chains, instructors and trainers are paid for how many people are in classes, often referred to as their utilisation rate. Other similarly priced boutique fitness studios such as [solidcore], Barry’s and SoulCycle pay instructors more depending on how many clients are in their class on top of a base rate. If a client fails to show up for class, instructors are still paid, and clients are charged a late-cancellation fee. CorePower also charges a $15 late cancel fee for cancelling class within two hours of the start time.
In addition, instructors are typically provided with a clear promotional path they can choose to pursue. “I worked for another large fitness brand as main gig as I kind of transitioned to CorePower Yoga and the bare minimum [was] $40 a class. I've been doing this for a while; I think that $30 plus has to be the minimum for a fitness instructor.” Said Gordon.
In 2021, workers at climbing gyms across the country began organizing, primarily at gyms owned by Movement and VITAL. On the Climbers United VITAL website, they cited private equity’s decisions to buy and acquire climbing gyms they worked at as a driving force behind their organizing. Employees at VITAL, which were Steeprock gyms before the acquisition, felt that they “no longer had any input on the direction of the gyms and community that [they] knew best from [their] years of service.”
Workers at Movement Gym’s Crystal City were the first climbing gym workers to successfully unionise in November 2021. Since then, over 20 climbing gyms across the United States have began organizing and 18 have been unionised.
The three-year contract ratified by Climbers United VITAL includes pay raises for the duration of the contract, and unchanged company contributions to healthcare. Furthermore, workers were able to accrue paid time off, and consistent hours.
This variation in timelines is not unusual, according to Ben Bennett, deputy organizing director at Workers United, who helped climbing gym workers unionise. “On average in this country now, it often takes about a year. It doesn't have to take a year. It only takes that long because of resistance from the employer.” Workers United has also filed multiple unfair labour practice charges against Movement Climbing Gyms, due to their resistance to bargaining with the unions at each of their unionised locations. (10 as of 2026)
Rehfeldt writes that as more Gen Z workers enter the workforce; they are more likely to organize in a fragmented fitness landscape. “I do think it's going to keep happening. I think it's going to be something that the fitness industry is going to have to deal with. VITAL, is unionized. And it actually turned out pretty well for them; it seems like both parties were satisfied and even within like the climbing community, they're revered as doing the right thing.”
Continuing her train of thought, “Market research reports that comes out that keeps saying that [Gen Z is] very values driven – it's not jus t[about] a great experience. It's also if they know the place is inclusive or if they know that the place has even unionized, even in the case of the climbing gyms – they would just rather spend their money that way.”
On r/CorePower, posts asking for class recommendations, discussions about music played in class resumed their normal cadence. It was as though the call to go on strike had never happened.
On a casual stroll by a CorePower studio in the East Village, nothing seemed amiss. Students and employees entered the studio with their yoga mats. Across the board, there was never a consensus amongst within a singular studio or market as to what a strike would entail. “Whatever you need me to do – if you want me to strike, if that helps your situation, I'm happy to” Ferrari remembers saying to her colleagues. “Because I do think that people deserve to be paid, I'm along for the ride.” She concludes.
“Their campaign has been very different from a lot of other organizing campaigns in that, they kind of self-organized and called for a strike right out the gate.” Bennett comments. Strikes are typically only called for when employers have refused to engage with a bargaining unit solidified by a union election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. When employers refuse to engage with unions in good faith, such as engaging in union-busting practices or retaliation, a strike authorization vote is held to determine if workers will go on strike if the employer refuses to cooperate.
“I'm just kind of surprised by the strike because I thought being on strike meant you had to be part of a union. And I was never part of a union when I worked there.” Mu recalls. “I don't know how that communication happens, but I was very surprised that they were calling it a strike.”
While this exercise in organizing did not produce the exact results that the demands called for, it is not unsurprising. The sheer number of CorePower studios makes it increasingly challenging to organize. “The more locations an employer has, the more organizing workers need to do, to build real power within the employer.” Bennett remarks.
“If an employer has only one location, if you form a union at that location, you've got the power to shut down their business at that location. But, if they have, hundreds or thousands of locations, then you've got a lot more [to do] … they have only so much power [at one location].”
The bursts of organizing drives in the fitness industry have rarely succeeded, especially pre-pandemic organizing. Organizers often lost momentum or left the fitness industry altogether. Even instructors who were in the YogaWorks Union have stopped teaching yoga. “Nobody from my bargaining unit is teaching yoga as a full time [instructor]”, Stevens mused in surprise. “No, nobody's teaching yoga full time anymore. That was like actively part of [the union]. They've gone into other fields or went back to graduate school.”
Historically, the fitness industry was not seen as one that could viably unionize. The variety in certifications required across different types of fitness modalities makes it incredibly challenging to get an estimate of how many workers there are. The idea of fitness workers unionizing “it's so foreign, I think to the fitness industry. They're not used to even thinking about that. Starbucks – I think they were blindsided too by it. They weren't really prepared,” Rehfeldt reflects.
However, the possibility of a union for fitness instructors is not out of reach. While resistance can be expected “A lot of fields, especially fields that don't have a long history of being unionized – There's a lot of resistance from employers,” Bennett says, the prospect of unionizing is becoming more and more appealing in today’s employment landscape.
An increasing number of people have taken up teaching fitness as another form of supplemental income. “More of the work that powers our economy is part time work. So, more and more people are piecing together two and three different part time jobs.” Bennett said. The desire for stability could push more of them to organize.
“There was a time when, organizing, baristas was like a joke,” Bennett recalls. He is a part of the campaign to unionize workers at Starbucks with Workers United. “And now there are, tens of thousands of workers in coffee shops that have organized and Starbucks workers are still fighting for a contract, but there are other smaller coffee chains that workers have on a contract.” What’s stopping fitness instructors?