Corporate gym chain GoodLife Fitness has “systematically failed” to accurately compensate thousands of employees across Ontario for their hours of work and overtime, according to a new $60 million class-action lawsuit.

The suit, filed by renowned labour law firm Goldblatt Partners, makes numerous allegations against the fitness giant with 166 locations across the province — including that its policies “fail to appropriately compensate” employees and create “an unlawful barrier to payment of overtime.”

It also claims GoodLife regularly fails to pay its employees for certain types of work, such as preparation for classes and seeking out new clients.

“These are precarious workers, these are young workers, these are in many cases part-time workers, workers who face precarious schedules,” said Josh Mandryk, co-counsel on the case. “It’s really crucial for workers in these situations who face challenges standing up to these sorts of policies alone to come together and defend that principle that they should be paid for all their hours of work.”

In an emailed statement to the Star, a spokesperson for GoodLife said a fair and supportive work environment was a “key priority” for the company.

“We disagree with the allegations outlined in this claim. We are currently in the process of reviewing and assessing the allegations so that we may defend ourselves,” the statement added.

In order to proceed, the class action must first be certified in court. Mandryk expects that hearing to take place next year.

The Star has previously reported on an organizing campaign at GoodLife that resulted in around 650 Toronto personal trainers unionizing after complaints of poor pay and health and safety concerns. A Ministry of Labour inspection blitz focused on precarious employment slapped the company with five orders for violating employment standards.

The new class-action suit represents any non-unionized employee past or present who has worked at GoodLife since 2014, a number Mandryk says he expects is in the thousands.

In its statement of claim, lawyers for the class action argue that GoodLife prevented workers from accurately recording and claiming for all their hours of work, since their electronic time sheets “are altered by managers and club administrators” when they surpass the overtime threshold of 44 hours a week.

Workers can be disciplined by GoodLife for working unauthorized overtime — but must also maintain an average of 96 personal training hours with clients each month, according to the suit. To reach that, employees must spend time “prospecting” new clients — but they are “not compensated for all of these hours,” the claim alleges.

The suit cites the examples of representative plaintiff Carrie Eklund, who says she performed around 100 hours of prospecting work in one month. She was not paid for any of it, the statement of claim alleges.

“To me, this case is about standing up for what’s right,” Eklund told the Star. “GoodLife employees deserve to be paid for all of the work that they do.”

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Trainers are also required to prepare for classes as well as spend hours completing mandatory paperwork for the company, the lawsuit claims, all of which is not compensated.

The lawsuit says the class action “will advance the goal of access to justice by providing a remedy for GoodLife’s employees” who it says “face well-documented systemic barriers to enforcing their rights.”