WHAT is going on at the Be Well Centres in Tower Hamlets? Management of the leisure centres came in-house in 2024, and the service has certainly improved. But Unite says their members’ jobs are not being well at all.

Unite, the trade union to which some of the staff belong, have issued an angry statement which says that staff will take strike action over “insecure contracts and mismanagement”. It explains that workers are angry over “unequal pay, bullying, last minute rota changes, overwork and job roles”. The staff going on strike include managers, lifeguards, fitness instructors, customer service workers and swimming teachers at the John Orwell, Mile End, Poplar, Whitechapel, York Hall and Tiller Leisure Centres on nine dates in June.

Unite alleges that Tower Hamlets Council is running the Be Wells with a two-tier workforce. Some workers have zero hour contracts or have contracts which offer as little as five hours a week. Some have standard Council contracts, while others have no formal written contract at all.

As well as these issues, workers are also alleging that staff are being mistreated, with unsafe levels of staffing and staff not able to take rest breaks or having to do tasks that are not part of their job roles.

The Leisure Centres used to be managed by GLL, under a contract dating from the days when Labour’s John Biggs was keen to contract out services. When the GLL contract came to an end, in 2024, Mayor Lutfur Rahman decided that the centres should be managed direct by the Council (and should adopt the rather silly name of “Be Wells”). Staff who used to work for GLL were taken on by the Council. They had a variety of contracts, providing for a variety of shifts, different duties and seasonal working. The Council is working to transfer these staff on to standard Council contracts, and 60% of the transferred staff have now done this.

It is hard to see which of the sparring parties is right. Unite are complaining that some transferred staff are not on Council contracts, creating a two-tier workforce, and the Council says that it is trying to get everyone on Council contracts. Unite have announced nine strike days, whereas the Council claims it kept all the Be Wells open on the first of the strike days.

Labour’s John Biggs presided over a major attack on the terms and conditions of all Council staff and this problem seems to be the opposite – a case of trying to improve terms and conditions by getting staff on Council contracts. Whatever the inside story is, Be Well Centres will want these two organisations to work through the disagreements and sort out a solution.

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