Employment lawyer on GoodLife fitness mass terminations

Many gyms and the fitness industry, in general, have felt a significant impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. GoodLife Fitness as a result recently laid off hundreds of instructors citing financial difficulties as a result of COVID-19. What can employees in this situation expect upon termination?

Jon Pinkus, a Toronto employment lawyer and Partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP spoke to CTV News on employee rights and what they could be owed if laid off.

The manner in which the employees at GoodLife Fitness were laid off raised some concerns, says Pinkus, but it’s not illegal. “There’s certainly nothing illegal about terminating by email, and in fact, when you’re terminating someone’s employment, it is always advisable to do it in writing,”

Pinkus goes on to explain that the manner in which employees were terminated is not as significant as the amount of notice.

“Depending on the length of time employees have invested into a company, more personal notice might be expected,” says Pinkus. “I would typically advise companies to at least preface it with a phone call. Quite frankly, even if they had invited everyone to a sort of a global conference call to tell them […] that the termination letters were coming, then at least they’re not just all of a sudden, out of the blue getting an email that their employment of maybe 10 years is over.”

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Pinkus goes on to explain that severance for terminated employees is partly based on the years of service and employment among other factors. “The law considers various factors that are supposed to approximate how long it would reasonably take them to find a new job,” Pinkus explains. “So if they’re older, if they’ve been there for longer if they have a job that is not plentiful — you know, probably not a lot of places hiring personal trainers or people who manage per trainers right now.”