I’ll be the first one to admit, I don’t know a thing about unions. It seems that whenever the discussion comes around to whether or not there should be a massage therapy union, that there are plenty of emotions to go around and not much research or hard facts.
The problem is that many massage therapists are taking jobs that are less than ideal with low pay, long hours. no support systems and they end up feeling discouraged or even get injured on the job. Now that more places like Massage Envy and other massage franchises are opening up, it opens up more massage therapy jobs – but low paying jobs. I guess it also depends on your perspective and maybe age. Does $12-$15 an hour sound like a lot of money after working for minimum wage at fast food chain?
Unions have also been around for a long time and depending on your upbringing they may or may not have been a big part of your life. I personally was not around unions and don’t have much respect for them.
As far as creating a massage therapy union, we have yet to define massage professionally let alone be able to create various levels of achievement and skill to create a system of pay for union members.
What is lacking is education in the massage schools about finding a job or starting a massage business. Many are led to believe that there will be high paying jobs when they get out of school or just because they have good hands many think that their practices will automatically flourish the minute they open the door of their office.
Many massage therapists are not motivated to start a business as it requires having a business sense or the money to hire business people to run it. They just want a job where they can come and go and not worry about how they are going to get clients.
When I first started 20 years ago, there weren’t any massage therapy jobs -or hardly any. Most were just sub-contractor positions which means they were self employed anyway. With the average age of massage therapists being 45 years old, massage therapy jobs probably won’t be enough income for that age bracket.
Who is taking those low paying massage therapy jobs are people right out of school or younger massage therapists who choose to go to massage school soon after high school or college. Because their needs are less than that of a 45 year old as far as income goes for the most part, these people fit the massage job profile.
I would love to say that the golden rule when thinking about taking a massage therapy job is ‘Do not take a job that pays you less than you need to make or offers you less massages per week than you need to make a decent living. ‘ This is a big part of self care for massage professionals – having enough money to care for themselves and family which includes saving for retirement and taking nice vacations.
So do we need a union? I don’t think it would be possible or needed. But we do need some help in this area as a profession.
How else can we get this information out to massage professionals? Would our massage associations be able to take up some slack and provide more information and help for massage therapists in finding jobs or creating jobs?
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I am not sure which states everyone is representing, but I live in washington. I am sick to hear of the low pay as others have discussed on here.
There needs to be Either a Staffing for Massage therapy which offers medical benefits after 6 months of continous work. or a union.
Staffing is where an massage therapist may be part-time, full-time, temp or permanent.
i am so incredibly frusterated. i am one of those “young inexperienced” mt’s that took a “massage job” after college…. or was, but now i’m in my 30′s and the fact that i have Never made enough ever and my debt has stacked sky high due to hovering at the poverty line. i would Love nothing more than to simply “not take a job that doesn’t pay enough” but i simply can’t give up not having any money, places that pay more are less busy, i have no credit to be able to start my own business and i am totally trapped. there has to be Something we can do all together. no massage therapist anywhere ever should walk away with less than 0.75/minute for techs and $1/minute for therapists…
You don’t need much money to start your own business nor do you need credit. You can easily rent an office for a day or two out of someone elses already established office. You can also figure out what place is paying more when you are looking for a job and figure out what you need to do to get that job or create a job for yourself by showing an employer how you can make them more money.
Are you on my Facebook page? ask people there for support or answers to your questions. http://www.facebook.com/MassagePracticeBuilder
Julie
I am whole-heartedly in agreement about the need for a Union. Having previously been a union member in another profession, I cannot believe what happens to W-2 Massage Therapists. Complete lack of respect for the training, for the professionalism, for the time that each client should have (pre and post consult), health of the practitioner. I feel as though we are thought of as no more than uneducated, feel-good hippies, and that’s not the truth. We are articulate, educated and entrusted by people in vunerable positions.
We are paid poorly, generally treated poorly and expected just to shut up and be thankful we have a job.
I regularly speak up and have been dubbed ‘the problem child’. I spend each day worrying that my job is on the line because I simply expect to be treated and paid fairly. Not excessively, just fairly.
Loopholes in Labor Laws allow them to treat us poorly.
As you can guess, it’s a subject I’m passionate about and am more than willing to stand up, in order to educate employers, about the abuse of the practitioners.
I agree that we should not have any “flat wage” for all therapists. I think the wage should reflect what the establishment charges. If the establishment presents itself to the public as a high-end spa or rehab clinic where they can get excellent money and keep the therapists busy, it should hire experienced therapists and pay an excellent wage. In a “Massage Envy” type place where they charge less, it would be more appropriate to hire inexperienced therapists and pay a lesser wage. The way it is now, the public is being duped by thinking a place is “nice” and that they must be getting high-quality care. But, the therapists working there are usually inexperienced and working for peanuts. If they are good, they probably have either low self-esteem or anger issues. This is not good for the public, and certainly not good for us.
In the old days, we got at least 50 percent of what we made for the establishment. You can still find this in some smaller spas. But, my experience with a couple of these was that they flooded the floor with way more therapists than they needed, so it was impossible for anyone to earn a decent living.
Hello, everyone,
I want to start a website that would help to educate the public, employers who will listen, and our young people entering massage therapy, that we are, indeed, skilled people deserving of a decent wage (please see my longer post).
If you agree that we need this education, would you contact me? I need encouragement. It has been very difficult to motivate myself.
Contact me at getindependentnow@yahoo.com . Thanks!
The best way to go about creating such a website is by researching the topic and researching what is out there on the web already and finding a way to put all of the info into one website. Think about what solution would your site provide? Who would be your readers? MT or potential clients? I don’t necessarily think a union is the answer. I just saw “Waiting for Superman” and it is the unions that are the problem in the current education system. I use and recommend that you use SBI! to start researching, planning and implementing your website.
Julie
Thanks for the tip on the website software. I’ll look into it.
We need to educate employers, the public, and young (and old) people going into massage therapy that massage therapists are skilled, and worthy of a decent wage. This is hard work, requiring not only physical stamina, but knowledge of the body, patience, and compassion. Other service providers who perform separate services for which a separate fee is paid (where you can track how much you earn for your employer) are paid two or three times the average that massage therapists earn. Dental hygienists, for example, average some $65 K a year, according to the department of labor, while massage therapists average $10-15 an hour, with no benefits, and mostly all are part time. Every massage job I’ve had (even with big employers who can keep a therapist busy) have kept the massage therapists at part time so they would not have to pay them benefits. These same employers gave full time and benefits to all their other employees. Office workers in rehab clinics, for example, commonly make more money than the therapists who can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for their employers.
The corporate takeover of massage therapy in recent years has also resulted in lower quality of therapy. If you think you aren’t worth much, you will perform accordingly. The public is thus being cheated, as they pay a good deal going to the “nice” places, thinking that they’ll get top quality care, when they are just given to somebody right out of school who is working on an assembly line. People in horrible pain from car accidents have it the worst, as they go to chiropractic and rehabilitation clinics thinking that they’ll get good care at a doctor’s office. But again, the therapist is likely to be either very young and inexperienced, or have low self-esteem, or have anger issues from working so hard for so little money.
Conversely, if you think you can facilitate miracles, you will be able to facilitate miracles.
Many of us got into this because we wanted to facilitate miracles. We need to take this title back, and step into this role again. We need to hold our heads up, and be the highly-paid, highly-skilled and respected miracle faciliators we used to be. That means organizing, speaking out as a group, and, where we can in the larger places, yes unionizing. Most of us have to work to pay our bills, so simply quitting a bad job isn’t an option. And, the fact of the matter is that the larger places will continue to get the lion’s share of the clients.
Again, educating the public, the employers who will listen, and our young people entering the field is critical.
Yes educating the public can help but education is often confused with just ramming information into someones head. Education is the process of ‘drawing out” – getting people engaged in a topic – learning about their needs and values first so that you can help them find a solution to their issues – pain, stress.
I don’t think it is totally corporate takeover of massage that has resulted in a lower quality of massage- it also has a lot to do with massage schools who take unqualified and very young people into their trainings so that they can fill their massage schools. It is also a result of massage schools not having qualified teachers and just using grads to teach classes. There are many factors involved.
I don’t think any one gets into massage to facilitate miracles – there are no miracles. There is just doing massage. I don’t want any title of doing miracles put with massage. It will make the profession look even more ridiculous. We have a hard enough time being accepted as health care professionals. Miracle workers isn’t something I would like to see massage be confused with.
I think the first step is believing it and knowing it in every cell of your being first and working to uncover your own personal beliefs about massage and being paid as a massage therapist. Many say they are not in this for the money but I say otherwise. If you aren’t in it for the money then why aren’t you offering your services for free? You can work in a caring profession and make a great living.
Julie
I absolutely agree that schools are partly to blame. They are part of what I call the “corporate takeover.” One large school, for example, charges some $11,000 for a massage degree and $24,000 for a “dual license,” then works to make it harder for its graduates to earn a living by running continual clinics where anybody, with no income restrictions, can get ultra-cheap massages. They own large ritzy spas on the cruise ships and hotels, where they pay the therapists very little, and force the therapists to sell lotion to clients in the middle of a massage! If they therapists don’t sell the required amount of lotion, they get their massage commission cut. And, they give as many clients as they can to the therapists who sell the most lotion.
I used the term “miracles’ because I believe we are on the verge of some major breakthroughs that can rightly be called “miracles.” Energetic modalities are mushrooming now. I’m sorry if this sounds ridiculous. I know it’s easy to make fun of strange terms that sound unusual. But, people who make fun of things because they sound weird are immature themselves. I don’t believe in dressing weird or making myself look different. But, I don’t believe in stiffling anything either. I want to encourage people to move to their full potential, and “miracle” just sounded like that kind of an infinite word. I believe we need to collaborate Western with Eastern, as is happening more and more. Many massage therapists who perform traditional Western manual therapy also incorporate energetic modalities, and I believe that this synthesis will, indeed, produce “miracles.”
Dental hygenists also have a lot more training that they need to go through and insurance will cover their work. MT go through 500-1000 hours of classes and it isn’t covered by insurance except for car accidents and workers comp.
Jobs are not really the way to go in the massage profession because they don’t pay much. You can find higher paying jobs if you take the time to research jobs and learn how to promote yourself to potential employers. I explain it all in my Massage Job Guide
Julie
If you work in a rehab. clinic and work on car accident victims, they bill the insurance companies $200 an hour for the massage, plus additional (I’m not sure how much) for a hot pack. Plus, of course, they bill for a lot of other services that LMTs sometimes provide: EMS, spinalator machines, etc. So, yes, they can make a LOT of money on massage therapy. And, in a tourist-area spa, they can charge $180 an hour and up for massage therapy and pay out very little (for example, one spa charges a “mandatory” tip on top of the very expensive service in which clients can pay up to $250. They pay the therapist who does the work a flat $28, with no additional hourly pay, benefits, or anything.
And, today’s massage schools frequently offer 2-year associate programs and charge $10,000 or so, which is quite comparable to dental hygienist training–I looked it up.
I have been in massage for 18 years. I have an absolutely stellar reputation, and presented myself that way to several high-end potential employers. They ignored me–wouldn’t even give me the time of day. Why? I think it was because they really wanted cheap labor from young things right out of school.
Besides, the length of training is not the determining factor in what people earn in most of the working world. Real Estate agents, for example, go to school for 2 weeks, yet have the potential to get rich if they sell. In most of the working world, people are paid in proportion to what they can make. But, because massage therapists have been pansies for so long, we can make a LOT of money for a busy high-end spa or rehab clinic, but not even break into the lower middle class ourselves, even after years of practice.
And, rehab clinics typically pay the massage therapists only around $11-$18 an hour, while they bill the insurance companies over $200 an hour for our services and can keep us extremely busy all day.
i think also this points to a larger issue that the body is still looked at as dirty or bad and we are equal to unskilled laborers and/or (hate to say it, but it’s true) whores, which also should be a valid and protected profession if you ask me… whole other topic)…. what happened to cultures that value their healers??? i actually taught a doctor stuff he didnt know the other day and the asshat left a 5dollar tip, i just cant take this anymore, i’ve tried and tried to get private clients happening but with working so much at the sweatshop, i cant be available enough to make that feasable….hands down massage therapy was the stupidest choice i have ever made ever….
I just want to respond to Anthony’s tirade against ABMP. I’m not sure where you pulled these figures from, but from my experience as an ABMP member, they are not correct. I pay $199 per year for my membership, which includes insurance (not all insurance policies are the same, this is a really good one) and a whole host of other resources, including a free website, a monthly discount on my Verizon bill, heaps of marketing materials, print templates, free bodywork and marketing webinars and outstanding support. In my opinion, it’s excellent value.
I believe that until a National Union is created Massage Therapist will continue to be exploited. I have spent a majority of my adult life working in Corp. America and decided 5 years ago to get my massage license. I attempted to work for Massage Envy, Hand and Stone etc.. and found that every one of these business models resembled those models used in 3rd world counties where children are exploited. The main theme “stand on the backs of your workers”. The problem primarily comes from therapist and clients who support such environments. As lead therapist of a local spa I have found that my team is amazing at what they do but have absolutely no backbone when it comes to standing up for themselves, they don’t care that they are being underpaid and overworked, they are just glad they have jobs and stick their heads in the sand. The disheartening aspect is that the owner of the spa who clears well over 500k per year in profit preaches to them all about how much she “loves” them and wants to seed the community with peace and well being, all the while refusing them health care or any other benefit including fair pay, she even charges employees retail prices on the supplements we make, and yes, requires that you take them so you know their benefits,and forces trades w/o pay to promote her business. The employees bitch about it but do it anyway and are ending up sick and injured. After 6 months of attempting to facilitate change, including going to the BOLI, who agree that these therapist are employees and not independent contractors but can nothing about it because of lack of state resources for investigation. I have given up and decided that I am better off back in Corporate America, where at least I am treated with dignity and respect and work with people who respect themselves. My attitude has gone from “I love what I do and can help my fellow therapist” to “I don’t want any association with the massage industry”. I have lost respect for the industry and those involved. I unfortunately now believe that they are getting exactly what they deserve. I really wanted to be the “Norma Rae” of massage but have found that most therapist are unmotivated, uneducated in regards to what unions can provide and quite frankly unwilling to listen, impossible to organize and for the most part better at creating unjust working conditions and low paying jobs then they are at creating or even looking for solutions to the problems that plaque this industry. Furthermore organizations like ABMP promote the problems and profit from them as well. They charge outrageous fees and provide a minimal service and sell advertising to massage companies who create these under paying positions and unfair practices, Many therapist pay the $300+ fee each year for insurance through the ABMP that could cost them $100, idiots! $200 is one heck of an expensive and useless magazine subscription. Again more exploitation coming from within the industry. I believe in the benefits of massage but I detest the level of stupidity I find in many of my peers. It does make me angry to see people allowing themselves to be demoralized and abused and I wish I could change it but until their is a Union nothing will change. People who feel that equal pay across the board is unfair are working strictly form a place of ego. Those same people are the ones that will never allow a union to be formed because they think they deserve more than someone with the same number of years working in the same field, because they somehow are “better” at what they do, we all work differently and offer a unique experience, however, that does not make one therapist better than another. EGO will kill a massage union faster than any union busting Corporate rat like Massage Envy. Therapist on a whole need to let go of their egos and unite. Until then, you all will suffer in the stink hole you seem to dislike so much.
Wow! Thanks for sharing your comments. I don’t think unions are the only answer. Unions are part of the reasons why the car industries are crashing. I think they hurt more in the long run and make people be drones in the system too. There are many other places besides a franchise to work. Did you look into other options? You can also find a place you want to work and create your own job by showing potential employers what it can do for their business. You could also start a spa/office that paid massage therapists more. There are a few franchises out there trying to do that.
People join associations to belong to a community. AMTA and ABMP offer many opportunities for networking and support and friendship.
I also think it is pretty deceiving the way massage schools forget to tell you that you can find jobs when in fact most massage therapists start their own business. It really doesn’t take much more than having to deal with some of these low paying jobs. You have to learn to promote yourself but you have to do that in a job too if you want to get repeat clients and be successful. Most just sit around waiting for clients to happen.
I do agree that massage therapists have a tendency to not stand up for themselves and just by the fact that they are taking low paying jobs in the first place shows that they don’t value themselves enough to go out and get better ones or create them. A union won’t change that I don’t think.
Nothing will really change until we change inside as the saying goes. (Be the change you wish to see).
Thank you, Anthony! I share your frustration and feelings. Could you contact me if you see this? I want to start a website/organization or something to educate around this issue and encourage organizing. But, I need help and encouragement. You can reach me at getindependentnow@yahoo.com. Thanks!
it is disappointing that you bailed out on what you consider to be corporatization of bodywork, but probably a relief to your former massage clients, unless you were ableto ditch your resentment at the door of the treatment room. good luck to you in the career you have chosen, I still love doing massage and everything that goes with it. I have faith that the industry will evolve through solidarity and rational dialogue, and we workers will recieve our due in the form of salary, benefits, and retirement plans. maybe what you mistook for heads in the sand was simply a love of what we do. my self care includes commitment to my craft, among other things!
A union doesn’t automatically mean equal pay or standardized edcuation or benefits for all. It is a means to start to negotiate and fight for things that members collectively want through power of the group. I agree with Julie, the “collectively” part seems near-insurmountable currently (I always say organizing massage therapists for anything is like herding cats.) Most of us don’t want standardization, or forced pay scales, and feel that would be a punishment, not a reward.
We do need to begin to think and act collectively to even begin to require employers to stop exploitation of therapists’ desire to work and good will. Every therapist won’t be a successful entrepreneur tomorrow, yet none of us deserve to be severely underpaid, or suffer for someone else’s failed marketing, whether we are 20 or 45 years old. We do deserve sick days and vacations and healthcare. The spa/wellness industry has thrived and grown like wildfire, not because it is cheap to run a spa, but that too many of them created a structure whose profits rely on exploitation of the average therapist.
Because some people do earn enough money for their needs in the short-run, often working too many hours, forgoing healthcare etc, therapists haven’t felt the motivation to organize. Also, many associate unions with blue-collar folks, and class prejudice has kept many of us from facing our own and the industry’s needs seriously.
It would have no bearing on starting clinics as it would be for massage employees and not the business owners.
It isn’t what is exactly needed. We do not know what is needed.
I for one would not like to be put in a group of massage therapists and be paid the same amount as everyone else even if they had a tier system. I want to be paid based on my abilities to retain and educate clients as well as provide the best massage for each person. How would you put that in one pay scale for everyone?
Julie
i think if our culture at large valued what we did (most of us are more helpful with everyday small things than actual physicians if you ask me) this would all be a mute point, but alas, what DO we DO? things suck the way they are and it totally is like living in a third world country….
a union is great i have been thinking that for some time and it is what needs to happen it can creat a source for borrowing money to starting clinics standardizing wages raises and benefits it is exactly needed and hopefully one will be started soon and I’ll dedicate my time to it
As a child and wife of union members and also as a massage therapist I would like a union. First of all seniority would a rule of thumb. Pay would be even across the board. Safety and care for the therapist would be #1. CEU’s could be taught at the local and would be free or at a min. price. There would be a set thing for schools or school would be taught at your local. So everyone would get the same education and are up to code. Maybe I should become a eletrican or something. That’s just my thoughts. Us being not so good with the moeny thing, well the union would protect us from cheating ourselves out of money. Than there’s benefits pretty good benefits. Well that’s all I go to say.
agree
“I would love to say that the golden rule when thinking about taking a massage therapy job is ‘Do not take a job that pays you less than you need to make or offers you less massages per week than you need to make a decent living. ‘”
That’s a great rule, Julie, though I’m in doubt most people, if asked, could answer what is the minimum amount of money they need to make each month to have a decent living.
Face it, as a profession, we suck at the subject of money.
also agree, but does that mean we dont deserve to live decent lives? the reason they can do this to us is because we are giving and suck at money matters, but that is who should be stood up for the most, who should be given the most protection. it blows my mind that people expect us to heal or at very least make them feel better and they have no respect for what we Are good at…