STONEWALLING
SAFETY
Touchstone Climbing spent the last few years doing the bare minimum to protect workers and visitors from an active shooter threat. Gym staff just want management to take worker safety as seriously as climber safety by developing a violence prevention plan with the staff.
This is the story—and what we can do about it.
LEARN MORETouchstone Climbing's leadership chose to ignore an active shooting threat in October 2023.
Talks stalled out after workers started organizing in response to management’s inaction.
Member threatens to shoot up Hollywood Boulders
Touchstone notified authorities and then took no further action. Staff and customers were not told about the threat. The member who made the threats was also not banned, and continued to visit locations for another four days.
Touchstone employees walk out & vote to unionize after inaction
An email was sent claiming the threat wasn't credible, but the member was finally banned. A Slack channel for employees to stay in touch was shut down by leadership when questions arose about how they handled the situation.
Temporary security were hired for some locations the former member was known to frequent, but the guards weren't given images of the could-be shooter. A security consultant was hired to visit all locations and make a plan. Staff have never seen any plans.
At a meeting held about the situation, staff recall CEO Mark Melvin expressing he was most sad for the member who made the threat as they now had nowhere to climb.
Just weeks after the threat, Touchstone's Southern California locations voted to unionize.
Touchstone refuses to bargain with union, continues to choose not to act on violence prevention
"At my location, you can't actually see who's coming in the door because of where the desk is located. So someone could walk through the parking lot with guns, and we would not see until they were already in the gym. A month or two ago there was an armed robbery at the gas station next door, and they fled through our parking lot."
- Jordan Mueck, Touchstone employee & organizer
The response? Staff say CEO Mark Melvin said the plan was to call 911 and he could write the number for them on a post-it note. Instead of investing in safety changes, Touchstone then hired a notorious anti-union law firm, Ogletree Deakins, to undermine the staff's organizing efforts.
In July 2024, California's workplace violence prevention law was enacted, requiring workers to collaborate with and train staff on a comprehensive plan for their workplace. As far as staff know, Touchstone is not in compliance.
Former member returns and damages property; Touchstone again ignores workers and fails to act
The situation was able to be deescalated and nobody was hurt, but staff say they struggled to get managers to respond to the situation and without the company-wide Slack channel, workers across the gyms couldn't get in touch to warn each other.
Shortly after, Touchstone printed maps of each gym with callouts for the exits. This was the only action taken after the second incident.
Touchstone continues to believe these threats aren't credible, even after this incident, and haven't indicated that they think workers are valid for requesting even basic precautions like ensuring all locks are internal to keep actors out or moving desks to better lines of sight.
Staff in other locales are also kept in the dark
"There has been no communication or plan for any of the Northern California gyms in response to either the original or the follow-up incident of the shooting threat. I find it really interesting that they intentionally try and separate that communication channel between Southern California and Northern California, especially when they removed the opportunity for full-circuit Touchstone communication. It sounds like they're trying to split the hairs so the communication between all of us takes longer, so they can try and control things, but it's dangerous."
- Northern California Touchstone Staff Member
Meet workers at the table to ensure safety at Touchstone includes a comprehensive violence prevention plan.
This is your opportunity to help Touchstone do the right thing. Help us show support for its workers by sending a message to leadership that this plan cannot wait a minute longer. We prepared the information for you, all you have to do is review and send.
TAKE ACTION
