Looks like the lawsuits are happening here, too:
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gamb...nt?oid=2295168




Looks like the lawsuits are happening here, too:
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gamb...nt?oid=2295168





yes, but ... a new wrinkle emerges ... from your link
(snip)"Many dancers don't want things to change, however. Among that rank is "Daisy," who has danced at Rick's Cabaret since 1996. She is one of a group of five dancers who has hired a lawyer to intervene in the case and represent their right to remain independent contractors.
"We started this with the lawyer because we weren't comfortable being named in Kelly's suit," says Daisy, who declined to identify her lawyer. "We don't want to change the status quo. I have not spoken to a single person who is willing to become an employee."
Daisy says the job's flexibility is one of its major attractions. "Cinnamin," a dancer who has worked at more than 30 clubs nationwide, including Rick's Sporting Saloon, agrees.
"A big part of why I'm in this job is because I can schedule when I want," Cinnamin says. "Some dancers have kids, so being able to show up whenever they feel like it works a lot better. I agree a lot of dancers are misclassified in other parts of the country. I just don't see it here [in New Orleans]."(snip)
Despite the new element of a third party being added to the lawsuit to represent the interests of independent contractor dancers, the 'handwriting' is clearly on the 'wall' regarding ongoing pressure for exotic dancers to be officially classified as 'employees'. The gov't has a vested interest in this due to income reporting / tax withholding / new revenues for unemployment and disability insurance funds. The club-owners are increasingly 'neutral' about 'employee' dancer treatment since they now face 'legal work status' verification plus new ACA based requirements to track and report payments to independent contractor dancers via 1099's, which will involve almost as much legal and accounting burden for the club as 'employee' dancer paperwork would. Corporate 'public company' club-owners like Rick's also now face increasing pressure from stockholders and regulators for 'transparent' accounting ... which is much easier to do in an 'employee' dancer environment devoid of house fees, devoid of direct payments between club customers and dancers that bypass the club's cash register, etc.
As much as I object for personal reasons, it's pretty clear that the 'employee' dancer trend is going to continue.





Stupid short sighted bitches and greedy lawyers are going to destroy the business as we know it with this shit.
Unless more real pros get on the countersuit bandwagon, like the 5 or so trying to intervene in this case.
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
George Clinton
______________________________________
I agree. Also, the part about Rick's NYC having to pay their dancers minimum wage is false. I haven't heard anything about that.





.... ummm .... from
(snip)The hottest trend in the nation's strip clubs is the dancers suing the pants off their employers. Latest case in point: Rick's Cabaret, conveniently located right near beautiful scenic Penn Station, and the site of a three-year-long stripper vs. management wage and hour lawsuit. On Tuesday, a federal judge sided with the strippers, ruling that they are employees of the club and deserve to be paid a minimum hourly wage . But will the lawsuit actually make working conditions at the club any more fair? On Stripper Web, a private forum for dancers, the reaction to the Rick's ruling was highly skeptical. Working strippers have seen these lawsuits before, and they've learned to be wary.
A little background: employment lawsuits at strip clubs have become common in the past few years, spurred by the fact that most strip clubs inappropriately classify their dancers as "independent contractors." It's a neat trick, a not-exactly-IRS-legal one, that allows the clubs to get away with not paying the dancers minimum wage, overtime, or worker's comp in the case of injury on the job. But it's unfair, because the level of control the clubs exert over the dancers is very much "employee," not "independent contractor." At Rick's, for example, dancers were required to wear at least four-inch stilettos, forego body glitter, cover up their tattoos, not chew gum, and, heaven forbid, never wear the same dress two days in a row.
Independent contractor status is just one of a host of sketchy requirements that strip clubs impose on their talent. Like a lot of other clubs, Rick's, a chain of clubs based in Houston, also charges its dancers "house fees," an amount they pay just to work (at Rick's it was reportedly $50 a night). And customers are required to purchase what strippers call "funny money", in-house Monopoly money that they use to tip their dancers for lap dances, and which the dancers theoretically turn in at the end of their shift for real cash. In practice, many dancers have reported being shorted when it came time for the fake money to be traded out for the real thing. Although each "dance dollar" at Rick's cost $24, the dancers alleged that they only saw $18 of that.
So three years ago, around 50 women filed a $5 million lawsuit against the club, both for not paying them minimum wage, for unlawfully taking some of their tips, and for charging them various illegal fines and penalties. In ruling in their favor, U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote in part that the Rick's house rules "regulated almost every aspect of the dancers' behavior within the Club," making it clear they were employees. (You can read the full ruling on the next page.)
In a statement, Rick's CEO Eric Langan told the NYT that Tuesday's ruling would have "no impact on Rick's Cabaret New York City, since we changed our independent contractor practices some time ago." He also said the minimum wage was "a fraction" of the $1000 per night he claimed the dancers at Rick's take home.
And the dancers on Stripper Web reacted to the news of the Rick's victory with a heaping handful of salt. "My manager says it won't change anything," wrote one New York-based stripper.
"That's good to hear," another dancer responded. "Most of the time these settlements make a change for the worse." The only exceptions, she said, were Deja Vu in San Francisco and Spearmint Rhino in Las Vegas. Deja Vu got rid of all their house fees, while Spearmint Rhino increased the cut of the funny money that the dancers took home.
But the general consensus with these lawsuits is that the management usually finds a way to twist them to their advantage ("Lord knows the managers would probably fuck it up," as one woman put it). Strippers in Texas experienced similar treatment there (and strip clubs in Dallas are big, big business). Some of the Stripper Web crew worried that the rulings would cut into their take-home pay.
"As discussed in other threads, 'employee' status / treatment results in more tax revenues being collected from the clubs and dancers, as well as more state unemployment and disability insurance fund revenues being collected from the clubs," one dancer wrote. "Also, the press coverage once again widely publicizes the fact that some dancers are earning $1,000+ per night ... a point which won't be overlooked by the NY state and city tax agencies!"
There's a lesson here for strip club-going people, those sensitive souls who want their dancers to be fairly compensated. That lesson: whenever possible, pay them in cash."(snip)
We both know the 'problem' with that approach. The attorneys representing the dancers suing for 'employee' status are willing to work for 'free' up front, in exchange for grabbing a third of the settlement money after receiving a favorable court ruling or a settlement offer from the strip club parent corporation. The attorneys representing independent contractor dancer interests aren't in a similar position, thus they will want the independent contractor dancers to raise thousands of dollars in legal fees 'up front'. As important to their future take-home incomes as retaining independent contractor status vs being declared 'employees' might really be, there are extremely few independent contractor dancers who are able / willing to pony up say $1000 each out of their own pockets to oppose the 'employee' status legal position.Unless more real pros get on the countersuit bandwagon, like the 5 or so trying to intervene in this case.
Last edited by Melonie; 01-08-2014 at 04:24 AM.
Bookmarks