High-end health clubs allegedly conceal an exploitative work culture in Thiruvananthapuram Health Updates

A fitness trainer at a gymnasium in Thiruvananthapuram.
| Photo Credit: Nirmal Harindran

Thiruvananthapuram’s rapidly growing network of upscale health clubs is emerging as a youngster’s mecca for employment.

Hundreds of youth from struggling working-class families with an affinity for bodybuilding are becoming certified physical trainers to cash in on the fitness fad.

Most seem driven by the desire to break free from the fettering grind of a ten-to-five job to pursue their studies and passion for fitness while supplementing the family income.

Nevertheless, Justice Alexander Thomas, chairperson of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), recently heard that the stylishly luxurious and upmarket health clubs patronised by the fitness-conscious upper middle class concealed an exploitative work culture.

The petitioner, Johny Vincent, told the SHRC that several gym managers often manipulate trainers into working long hours for low wages. 

He submitted that most health clubs consider fitness coaches part-timers and contract workers, hence unqualified for basic protections such as overtime pay, minimum wages, a provident fund, welfare dole and ESI coverage. 

Sanjith (name changed), a physical trainer, says fitness coaches are disorganised labour lacking a collective voice.

“We endure several indignities at the workplace. For one, gym managers frown upon trainers who drink water, sit, or lean on machines during long work hours. Trainers must remain standing and attentive, even if only one member is on the floor. The salary is a pittance despite the job’s physically taxing nature. Moreover, health club managements appropriate the lion’s share of the remuneration from personal training assignments,” he says. 

With 30 years of experience as a physical trainer, Mahesh (name changed), 56, has no savings. A former wrestler and certified fitness coach, Mahesh works for ₹15,000 a month in a posh health club. He commutes 20 km daily from his partly brick-and-cement house to the club at 4.30 a.m.

“The four-hour and eight-hour shifts are only on paper. We work overtime, cut back on food, and take extra training sessions and tips, if any, from good Samaritans to subsist”, he says.

Johns Abraham, a gym owner, says most coaches prefer to work part-time and have a penchant for shifting jobs. Experience, certification, the health club membership charge, and the number of patrons determine their wages. He denies that health clubs are exploitative workplaces. 

The fitness coaching community, largely a young demographic, senses hope in the SHRC’s intervention.

Justice Thomas seconded the District Labour Officer’s report that fitness coaching fell under scheduled employment and minimum wage and other workplace protections should apply.

Consequently, he ordered the Principal Secretary of Labour to constitute an expert committee to address the issue and submit a report on the action taken by June.