LEISURE centres in Croydon could close on Thursday and Friday as staff escalate strike action in a dispute over pay and conditions, unions have warned.
The 48-hour walkout is being staged against Fusion Leisure, the company which runs the five centres for the council.
Union Unite held a 24-hour strike as part of the same dispute in July.
It said 48 members of staff - lifeguards, fitness instructors and receptionists - would be involved in this week's action.
Fusion runs leisure centres in Waddon, Purley, Thornton Heath, New Addington and South Norwood.
They remained open during the last strike but Unite believes maintaining an uninterrupted service over two days will be more difficult.
Unite has accused Fusion of running a 'multi-tier' workforce in order to save money by paying workers who do the exact same job varying rates and subjecting them to different basic terms and conditions.
On Friday, workers involved in the strike will hand out breakfast 'goodies' - coffee, cereal bars and other freebies - to council staff as they go to work at Bernard Weatherill House, the headquarters of Croydon Council.
It says the demonstration is designed to highlight poor pay in the leisure industry while supporting a national campaign for a £1-an-hour pay rise.
Onay Kasab, Unite's regional officer, said: "We were disappointed that, despite committing to providing proposals to deal with our concerns about the multi-tier workforce, where staff doing the same job are on wildly varying pay and conditions, the employer has failed to even make contact with the union.
"We have made it clear we are prepared to negotiate - the company clearly is not."
During the strike, Unite will be organising protests at Fusion leisure centres in Southwark.
The union also plans to ballot members at Greenwich Leisure for strike action over zero-hour contracts.
A council spokesman said: "Officers have spoken with Fusion and they have pulled in enough staff from other contracts to ensure the centres remain fully operational during the strike period and they will keep to the normal schedule of programmes so there should be no disruption to the public."
