Yoga teachers in the UK have voted to form a new branch of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which organises precarious and gig economy workers including Uber and Deliveroo drivers. This is the first trade union for yoga teachers in the UK, and the second ever in the world, after Unionize Yoga in New York.
Key concerns include unpaid overtime and poverty pay well below living wage, as well as a lack of basic workers’ rights like sick pay and annual leave. Members also report an endemic culture of bullying, harassment and discrimination. The IWGB Yoga Teachers’ Union already operates working groups on these issues and offers training on responding to and preventing sexual harassment.
Yoga is an ancient form of exercise focussing on strength, flexibility and breathing to boost physical and mental wellbeing. The NHS defines main components of yoga as its postures (a series of movements) designed to increase strength and flexibility and breathing.
The practice originated in India around 5,000 years ago and has been adapted in different countries in a variety of ways. Yoga is now commonplace in UK’s leisure centres, health clubs, schools, hospitals and surgeries.
Since 2015, World Yoga Day is celebrated on 21 June across continents, after being proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Poverty and lack of support
Covid-19 has thrown many yoga teachers into poverty, with many ineligible people for furlough and falling between the gaps of the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). According to membership surveys conducted by the IWGB Yoga Teachers’ Union over 60% earned below living wage before Covid-19, with some earning as little as £5 an hour including unpaid overtime. Only 4% of yoga teachers report having employee status and basic protections, going down to 3% in the case of female yoga teachers. Only 19% have written contracts of any sort, less than 17% in the case of female yoga teachers of colour.
Simran Uppal, Secretary, IWGB Yoga Teachers’ Union said, “The global yoga industry is worth around £60 billion and much of that wealth is being extracted from underpaid, exploited yoga teachers. We’re not monks protected by an ashram or a wealthy elite of wellness celebrities. We have to survive just like the other precarious workers in the IWGB and around the world. It’s time for the yoga industry to live its values and respect our human rights.”
Lynette Greenaway, BAME Officer, IWGB Yoga Teachers’ Union said, “The labour of yoga teachers has been systematically undervalued. We clean and prep venues, travel extensively, plan classes, sign students in, do free marketing for our employers, deal with our students' emotional and spiritual dilemmas, and show up and stay well beyond our teaching time, and more. This is all unpaid overtime, and there's a deeply ingrained false belief that it is 'unyogic' to ask for adequate compensation. It's a performative silence that - together with cavalier attitudes towards our rights as workers on the part of some studio owners - increases the pressure and stress on yoga teachers to pay our bills and make a decent living from our work. Yoga teacher pay needs a complete overhaul."
When the fraternity was asked about the prospect of having this union by their side, Krishna Ruparelia, a qualified Hatha Yoga teacher told Asian Voice, “I think this Union is a good idea, and I may consider joining. I have completed my 500 hours yoga teacher training with the British Wheel of Yoga. Pre-Covid I taught at the local gym and since then have been volunteering my time with the Art of Living within the Sri Sri Yoga team, teaching online classes to help people manage their anxiety during this pandemic.
“Whilst yoga is one of the most popular practises that attendees across the globe take part in, people don’t know the complete benefits that yoga brings to their physical emotional and spiritual health. Though my income has not been affected much, I know other teachers who are in a much more dependable situation.”
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An interview with Simran Uppal, Secretary, IWGB Yoga Teachers’ Union
AV: Why did you start the union? Did you do a market survey to understand the requirements?
Simran: I realised we needed a union after experiencing non-payment, harassment, and rates of pay that were so low I was forced to work while extremely sick. I didn’t have any savings, sick-pay, or job security, and ended up bed bound for a month. This insecurity and exploitative working conditions, deprived of the rights we need, are so similar to precarious and ‘gig economy’ workers across the UK, including Uber and Deliveroo drivers, and other workers who organise in the IWGB. Yoga teachers across the UK began sharing experiences and writing openly about the exploitative rates of pay in the industry about a year ago. We did several large surveys about working conditions, pay, interest in union membership and priorities within that, as well as Covid. We have a small team of researchers and analysts working on that data, which guided our initial actions; as a union branch, we now have a strong, vibrant member-led democracy, supported by the central union, the IWGB, that hears every voice and centres the perspectives of the most exploited - people of colour, LGBTQ people, and women.
AV: Have you personally been harassed ever or paid below the minimum wage?
Simran: Before Covid hit, I spent a year working full-time as a yoga teacher in London, running all over the city to try to scratch together a living. Despite working days that were sometimes 16 hours or longer, including my commute, and barely taking a day off in months, I was barely earning enough to pay my rent, scrabbling to get by, and finally worked myself sick - but without any savings to support myself. I’ve experienced harassment and intimidation from a studio owner who refused to pay me after weeks of classes and had to give up my attempts to get my payment because of the damage to my mental health, and the fact that there was nowhere to turn.
AV: Many focus on the spiritual aspect and undermine the financial angle, calling it ‘Unyogic’. How do you plan to make people aware of their rights?
Simran: We’ve been reaching out through our own communities and more widely, using social media, formal and informal networks of teachers, and through the mainstream press. We’ve had articles published about us and with interviews from our members in the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, Le Monde and others; I even had an article of my own writing published in the Independent and appeared on Canadian national TV!
We believe that sharing stories and experiences helps yoga teachers feel less isolated, realise that they aren’t alone, and that we can come together and change the industry - and our society - for the better.
It’s important to note that there’s yoga, and there’s the yoga industry: as yoga teachers, we’re working and living and dependent on the material world and the industry, not somehow disconnected from it like a sadhu, or protected by a temple or ashram like a monastic yogi or priest. It’s not spiritual to ignore the violence and exploitation found in the real world; spirituality - in a yogic context, and across all South Asian traditions I know of - involves tending to ourselves, our communities, and changing the world for the better.
AV: What is the process of enrolment and does it cost anything to be a member?
Simran: Anyone currently working as a yoga teacher in the UK is eligible to join. You can find more information and join here: https://yogateachersunion.co.uk/membership. Like other trade unions, our members all pay a monthly subscription to resource our campaigning and movement, and to help fund the brilliant legal, press, and other support that comes through the central union. Our subs are tiered, and members choose how much to contribute, to enable our union to be accessible to everyone while resourcing and sustaining the branch effectively.
Photo credit: Elle Narbrook
