Theme Park at its Darkest

“The fox condemns the trap, not himself.”

– William Blake,

Proverbs of Hell.

It’s been remarkably busy down here in the offices of Theme Park at Its Darkest the past few weeks, even though the entire outfit has relocated to Istanbul. One could say that there has been an unofficial mainline to the grape-vine and, as a result, the mailbox has been heaving.

Amongst the more interesting correspondents is a former Goodlife exec who wishes to remain nameless. He made contact to share a number of facts about the beast, including the following morsels of information about the specious ‘agreement’ designed to make trainers work for free in sorry conditions.

“Some of the clauses [of the agreement] are actually illegal and contravene the Trade Practices Act. Also, as per the ATO definition, very few PTs are classed as sub-contractors as they fail the 80/20 rule.”

And as far as contract negotiation is concerned…

“[GL] do this on a case-by-case basis. Tell [trainers] that [they] have received legal advice to approach the ATO to give a ruling on their contractor status under their sub-contract and if they are not classified as a sub-contractor, then they will be coming after Goodlife for superannuation and annual leave. 

“See what their response is to that.” 

It will come as little surprise to the current readership that I’m always up for a fight. When Goodlife took over Armadale four years ago, they scrapped our Christmas holidays. A meeting was called to discuss the ‘Agreement’ in the broader sense, presided over by ‘Head of Fitness,’ Lance Williams.

So excited by the personal trainer’s agreement meeting at Armadale, Lance just can’t keep it in any longer.

I had never worked for a corporation before, so I went along to the meeting, apprehensive as to how it would work. I did think, however, if we had any sort of chance, it would come from a show of numbers. Tellingly, about thirty per-cent of the trainers attended.

By my own analysis, the Davros-like cretins in head office are very smart, but they are playing fast and loose. And if there’s an ace in the deck they’re counting on, it’s the fact that the average trainer is dumb, lazy, and disinterested.

The word from the Theme Park is this: if Goodlife makes you its bitch, it’s your own fault for rolling over.

This entry was posted on June 27, 2015 at 6:50 am and is filed under Goodlife, Journalism, Observation, Statement of intention with tags annual leave, Armadale, ATO, Davros, Goodlife, Istanbul, Lance Williams, Proverbs of Hell, sub-contractor, superannuation, Theme Park At Its Darkest, Trade Practices Act, William Blake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.