A trade union has called on councils to take back control of leisure facilities after an estimated 2,000 staff on zero hours contracts have been shed during the pandemic by controversial leisure services giant Greenwich Leisure Ltd (GLL)
Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest trade union, claims that the 500 jobs that GLL has cut since last March are just the permanent posts and does not take into account the 2,000 workers on zero hours contracts who have been told there is no longer work for them.
Unite regional officer, Onay Kasab, said: “Instead of GLL hawking the begging bowl around cash-strapped local councils asking them to prop up its flawed business model, council bosses should instigate a programme ‘to take back control’ of their leisure centres.
“Such a move makes sound economic sense as you don’t have to factor in the ‘profits’ for GLL, a so-called social enterprise. You would also increase employment security for the 10,500 staff that GLL currently has on furlough on 80% wages
“We believe that GLL has played fast-and-loose with the number of job losses that have occurred since last March – it says it has axed more than 500 permanent staff. We have it on good authority that, in addition, an estimated 2,000 workers on zero hours contracts were just told: “There is no work, go away”.’
In a statement for GLL a spokesperson said ‘Throughout the pandemic and the repeated closure of our facilities mandated by Government lockdown, we have sought to protect as many jobs and salaries as possible though deferring costs and accessing available loans and the job retention scheme.
‘Sadly, without a more comprehensive support package from Government to support public services and jobs in the UK leisure sector, there are some facilities which may ultimately be unviable to reopen. Together with the loss of revenue brought about by customer capacity limits in centres, these will impact on staffing levels across the industry, not just at GLL.’
