Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I raise the issue of the incredible exploitation of personal trainers by high-profile gyms. This issue was brought to light in a case taken to the Workplace Relations Committee, WRC, by a former personal trainer with FLYEfit. Another personal trainer, who works for Ben Dunne, contacted me. The situation was the same in both cases. Personal trainers have to pay about €2,500 to qualify as a personal trainer. After that, they must do 12 hours a week of free labour, which involves either cleaning duties or providing free training classes. That free labour is supposedly to make up the rent to allow people to work as personal trainers out of the gym. Therefore, these personal trainers pay for their qualifications and then they must provide free labour for the gyms to enable them to work in them. Will the Government take steps to ensure that the minimum wage legislation is applied in this area and that no free labour is expected of these personal trainers?

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