Equinox Group Instructors facing 25% pay-cut following the opening of some Equinox facilities.
Summary of the Original Article at BuzzFeed News. Here Posted on July 8, 2020, at 3:43 p.m. ET
Summary of the Original Article at BuzzFeed News. Here Posted on July 8, 2020, at 3:43 p.m. ET
The article sheds some light on the some of the positives and negatives of the industry, and focuses on an group exercise instructor Monica Davis, a corporate response from Equinox, and a few other anonymous sources who works in the southern California area.
Here are some main points of interest you can take from the article. If you do have the 15 minutes to read through their full write up head over to Buzzfeed to read the full report.
In the Buzzfeed article Davis explains she would typically be paid $60 a class. When the gyms closed, Equinox paid Davis and other instructors 75% of what she’d been making while teaching (~$45 per class).
Bikes at an Equinox gym in California were spaced only 3 feet apart.
Instructors have also been asked to help clean the group fitness studios after classes, without additional pay according to company emails.
The 75% rate was expressed with a vague deadline of “Until we(Equinox) get back on our feet”
A DC instructor was told that if she didn’t come back to teach within two months of her location reopening, she would be considered an inactive employee and be required to re-audition for her role. — Liz Levitan, a spokesperson for Equinox, said the DC employee had received inaccurate information. “After 8 weeks we simply rehire an employee who goes inactive in payroll. No audition is required,”
But that same morning, Equinox’s executive chair Harvey Spevak announced that the company was furloughing some instructors and other employees who have not returned to work, including the DC instructor and Davis. According to a source close to the company, 1,500 employees were furloughed.
…some employees at closed clubs will stay on as active employees including “Group Fitness Instructors with greater than 14 classes/week.”
no mention of inactive employees at open locations like Davis and the DC instructor who have not yet returned to teach out of fears for their safety.
Levitan said in a statement that Equinox was proud to compensate its employees for as long as it did while gyms were closed, but have no choice to consider furloughs in the markets where clubs are still closed.
Davis said she was given just two days to sign an agreement that would lock in her pay cut and bring her back to work.
Originally published at https://www.buzzfeednews.com.
My Closing Opinion
This is a difficult time for all businesses especially the ones that have been fighting to be considered part of the “essential status businesses” like gyms of all sizes. It’s difficult for me to be convinced that larger locations/facilities like most Equinox, LA Fitness, 24 Hr Fitness and other regional franchises have the ability to keep their spaces clean to the standards that are considered acceptable without at least a full staff of happy employees. If they are trying to save some cost by working with less, asking more of those are working, and paying them less then this is not going to be a possibility. This is especially true if the people you are asking more of are paid strictly by their services rendered, or on a 100% commission basis. However, it’s not impossible if the right steps are taken from the top and relayed down to the everyday staff, and members.
I have never worked in an Equinox facility as a trainer or instructor so I can’t say I know what it’s like to be a part of the organization, but it’s easy to see that they are a “luxury” brand in the fitness space by their locations, guest wellness amenities, membership costs, and the cost of their personal services. With that being said it’s difficult for me to understand the need to cut wages from the people who uphold the high end reputation of the brand itself. Everyone is going through their own hardships in dealing with the CoVid-19 pandemic that it seems a little tone deaf to keep wages at 75% even though they were able to use their PPP to keep some employees paid during the shutdown(that was the purpose of the PPP in the first place).
The world knows “it’s not great right now for most businesses”, and I’ll just be here struggling to understand why those decisions were made. In my state of curiosity I also wonder how these ruling effect salaried positions at the company. Is it something that they are doing company wide at all levels? Are salary employees moving to hourly rates instead? Does this effect personal trainers who sold training packages prior to the closures? Did they cut wages to their service staff in order to add more gym cleaning and gym maintenance staff?
There’s never a clear cut answer, but it seems there have been issues in communications; when you pair that with tension and emotion any action can seem unfair to those who it is imposed on.