Originally Posted by Melonie link=board=1;threadid=6077;start=msg66594#msg66594 date=1075035750
The merits and flaws of unionization basically boil down to the same merits and flaws of legally being considered an "employee" versus an "independent contractor. From my own viewpoint, a dancer working as an "employee" would have the following merits -
The club would be forced by state labor laws to provide workmen's comp and disability insurance for dancers who work more than 24 hours per week (full time employees). The club would be forced by state labor laws to abide by fair hiring practices (which might in turn increase the number of black and hispanic dancers). The club would also be prevented from arbitrarily firing dancers without just legal cause. The club would be required to use seniority in any financially based layoff decisions. Dancers would have rights with state labor boards and would be in a position to easily report or sue over substandard working conditions. Clubs would only be allowed to hire "independent contractors" in the form of feature dancers not house dancers, therefore limiting the total dancers working per shift to a fixed scheduled number of employee dancers.
From a financial standpoint, the club would no longer be allowed to charge dancers stage fees or use fees. The club would also be required to pay some form of minimum wage (typically $2.95 an hour on the assumption that stage tips would make up the difference to the $5.95 an hour national minimum wage). The club would also be barred from collecting any portion of dancer's stage tips. DJ and Bouncer payments by dancers could still be required if these people remained "private contractors" not covered under the union contract.
However, the club treating its dancers as employees could have the following drawbacks -
Clubs would have to follow established employee hiring practices, typically including a criminal background check, credit rating check and legal citizenship/"green card" check. Clubs would have to keep employee records including real names and addresses and amounts paid in weekly paychecks, and to share this info with localities, states and of course the IRS when officially requested.
The club would be allowed to establish official rules and policies, which could cover such subjects as working specific shifts between certain hours on certain days, maintaining the original physical appearance they had when hired (Disney precedent), mandatory working at sister clubs etc. The club could limit the amount of hours a dancer was allowed to work per week (with a strong incentive to keep hours worked to 24 or below to avoid the club having to pay disability and workmen's comp insurance premiums). The club would also be required to pay dancers via a (weekly) paycheck with income taxes withheld and with income reported to the IRS using form W2.
From a financial standpoint, the club would be more or less required to set a fixed price for private dances and champagne room trips, and to treat dancers as "commissioned salespersons". This would mean that customer payments for private dances and champagne room trips would be rung up at the club's cash register, and the "commission percentage" later paid out to dancers in their (weekly) paycheck as well as reported to the IRS. Actually the club would not be legally required to pay any "commission" at all to dancers in return for performing private dances and champagne room trips, as performing these would be legally considered conditions of employment, however from a practical standpoint the clubs would probably pay a 50% commission as an incentive to good dancers who hustle. The club could also require that all dancers place any stage tip earnings into a "pool", to be paid out in EQUAL HOURLY SHARES to all dancers at the end of the week in their paycheck, as is common practice in the restaurant industry. The club could adopt a "funny money" tip system for stage and other tipping, to facilitate record keeping of individual dancer's tip incomes to be reported on W2's at the end of the year.
From a dancers tax standpoint, as an "employee" she would only be allowed to claim "employee business expenses", basically costumes and shoes. Travel and accomodation expenses, mileage, home computers, (non-employer provided) health and life insurance premiums, and other common write-offs permitted for independent contractor dancer "business expenses" would no longer be allowed for dancers working as "employees". As a trade-off, the dancer's total tax rate would drop by 7.5 % or so since she would no longer be required to pay self-employment tax (instead she would pay Social Security tax and so would the club).
From a clubowner's standpoint, treating dancers as "employees" in reality results in many new costs and expenses, i.e. paying workmen's comp and disability insurance premiums for each dancer, paying Social Security tax on behalf of dancers, keeping detailed club/employee financial records and operating a payroll system in accordance with state and IRS rules etc. One way or another these extra costs and expenses must be paid for, most probably by the clubs retaining 50% of customer's payments for private dances and champagne room trips.
IMHO, dancers being classified as "employees" is only a positive for girls who plan on working only at a local club for a long period of time. They will receive workmen's comp and disability benefits, minimum wage, greater protection from being fired, and greater protection from competition (i.e. no longer having several hot out of town dancers suddenly show up). It is also positive for girls who are 'average" or "less than average" earners, who may now receive "subsidized" shared tips by being paid a portion of tip money actually earned by "top" earning dancers.
On the other hand, "top earning" dancers may see themselves forced to work specific shifts between specific hours, may see their total working hours per week limited to 24 (so the club can avoid paying workmen's comp and disability premiums), may see only a 50% share of the private dances and champagne room trips they sell (with the club keeping the other 50% to cover new "employee" costs and expenses), and may see that a portion of the stage tips they earned handed over to other dancers who earned less as part of an employee tip sharing system. They may have less protection if a financially motivated layoff forces the club to reduce the number of dancers and other ("average" or "below average") dancers have more seniority.
Again, IMHO, looking at any heavily unionized industry i.e. Automakers will give you a pretty good idea of the likely end result - lazy workers protected by strict firing rules, "top producing" employees not receiving much extra compensation in return for their extra efforts, and a higher cost lower quality end product being offered to customers !