what is your personal opinion on this?http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...e26200477.html
what is your personal opinion on this?http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...e26200477.html
This has been happening all over the US for the past few years. There are a few of threads on here from previous cases if you're interested in reading them:
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...more-schedules
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...stie-s-Cabaret
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...wsuit-10-8-Mil
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...the-new-normal
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...by-july-1-2013
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...-all-employees
https://www.stripperweb.com/forum/sh...Rick-s-lawsuit



Deja Vu needs to be sued for thier contracts. They make you choose between IC and "employee", employee here meaning they take ALL your tip money (illegal, BTW, employers cannot do this).
"There are different kinds of darkness. There is darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful. There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good."
- The Court of Mist and Fury





^^^ technically speaking, it is completely legal for 'employers' to collect tip money from 'employees', as long as that money is ( eventually ) paid out again to those 'employees' in the form of minimum wage paychecks. It is also completely legal for 'employers' to pool the tip money collected from all 'employees' and redistribute those tip dollars as necessary to assure that every 'employee' is paid minimum wage at the end of the pay period. This happens all time with casino, restaurant etc. 'employees'.
The motivation for this is that, legally speaking, an 'employer' is responsible for making sure that every 'employee' is actually paid $9.00 per hour ( or whatever ) minimum wage rate for every hour they worked during a given week. If a 'lazy' employee fails to earn enough tips etc. to cover the $9.00 ( or whatever ) average, the shortfall has to be made up from somewhere. Tip sharing of pooled tip dollars from all 'employees' essentially forces the 'hard working' employees to pay for the shortfall instead of the 'employer'.
This sounds like it sucks.
Do strip club dancer 'employees' get insurance benefits and matching 401k from their strip club employer as well?
“Cook for him like a housewife, fuck him good like a nympho….pay the rent and the car note, he invests in me like crypto”





^^^ only if the 'employee' dancers are allowed to work 30 or more hours per week, thus being classified as 'full time' employees by the gov't.
This is a particular sticking point with 'corporate' clubs ruled to be 'employers', because whatever 'full time' employee benefits are currently being provided for club management and central office employees must arguably also be provided for 'full time' employee dancers. This would in turn mean providing 'expensive' benefits to those employee dancers, cutting existing benefits for club management and central office employees, or limiting employee dancer working hours to 28 hours per week or less to make them ineligible for benefits due to 'part-time' status.
Obviously, the latter option is the easiest and least disruptive for the 'corporate' club chain to implement. Limiting 'employee' dancers to a maximum of 28 hours per week also allows the 'employer' club to avoid having to pay insurance premiums to state unemployment and disability funds, allows the 'employer' club to avoid having to pay a potential $4,000 per dancer per year IRS penalty tax for failing to provide ACA compliant health insurance, etc.
Last edited by Melonie; 07-05-2015 at 08:49 AM.
No benefits, no tips, minimum wage, and forced schedules?!?!
Nope not worth it! I'll stick to independent contractor status any day.
“Cook for him like a housewife, fuck him good like a nympho….pay the rent and the car note, he invests in me like crypto”



No, employers cannot take your tips. Here is a really good post about that from someone who is working with lawyers over suing clubs who do this.
http://clarawebbwillcutoffyourhead.t...litter-goddess
"Right now there is no earthly reason why a stripper would choose to be an employee because the way that clubs sell employee status is deliberately (and illegally) designed to be as unappealing as possible so that strippers continue to choose the status quo which is being TREATED like an employee but TOLD they’re an independent contractor. Instead of what Déjà Vu (to name the most infamous) does, by saying that as an employee you get ONLY minimum wage and the first 20 dances you sell the money has to go straight back to the club and then they keep part of your tips after that.
The thing that clubs and strippers are overlooking here is that, since courts are unanimously finding that strippers ARE employees because of the way clubs treat them, there is no REASON to change how they are treated (if the clubs want to offer employee status) except to offer minimum wage and payroll tax. That’s all that would need to change and trust me, I did the door at the club I’m suing and I’ve seen the settlements clubs pay out to avoid a court judgment–it’s more cost effective to pay fifteen million dollars to avoid the judgment because THAT is how much clubs are saving by using illegal classification.
However, I’ve talked with my lawyers about the déjà vu contracts (portland’s ACE rep is trying to push them here) and not only would they not stand up in court, they’re still blatantly illegal and begging for a lawsuit.
You CANNOT TAKE your employees money.
At a federal level dance money has been found to belong to DANCERS.
So in theory, in a club that was absolutely abiding by the law, employee status could look good:
A dancer gets minimum wage, plus lap dance money, plus stage tips, plus paid sick leave, and can’t be fired or not hired for being black, for refusing to blow the owner, for being angry that a bouncer pulled her pants down, &c.
Nothing else would change.
Now if clubs were to be totally legit about independent CONTRACTING, a lot would change.
They would only be able to take specific amounts outlined in contract. Each dancer would be able to negotiate her own contract for herself, there might be NO overlap.
Scheduling would be up to the dancer, possibly with some guidelines (“must work at least five hours, if there are ____ dancers already on shift must wait until one leaves” &c with no preference given to manager faves
Dancers would be able to set their own prices and negotiate what each dance involved, whether extras, how much extras cost, &c. An air dance could be 20, a contact dance 40, any extra contact could be extra. The club does not get to force dancers to lower prices.
Dancers could ask for tips on top of dances.
Dancers could leave whenever they want.
In each scenario tho, the club is LEGALLY OBLIGATED to fill out tax forms for the dancer. There is no legal scenario in which a dancer is not reported to the IRS. Dancers in Portland think that’s legit but that’s only cause they’ve never actually DANCED any place legit.
Being reported to the IRS does not mean you need to pay taxes as an IC, altho it would mean you pay taxes on the minimum wage as an employee. But we all know bartenders and waitresses who under report their tips, justifiably IMO.
Having clubs fill out paperwork DOES NOT SHOW UP ON A BACKGROUND CHECK.
The only way dancing shows up on a background check is IF someone outs you and it becomes common knowledge or IF the person interested hires a private investigator who follows you around, sees you go into the club, and can verify that that is you onstage.
So why would a dancer want to be an employee?
Because in an ideal world it would be a way more awesome, protected, safe, and lucrative job, that would look exactly like it looks now, but with:
Workers comp!
Paid sick leave!
Unemployment!
Protections against sexual assault and harassment!
Employee paying that 7.5% payroll tax!
Easier access to healthcare, student loans, and mortgages!
Unfortunately we aren’t in that ideal world, and it is going to require a lot more work for clubs to start treating workers legally in EITHER direction.
The last three years of major dancer wins PLUS the fed ex and uber wins have rung a death knell tho. Clubs know (and all people abusing misclassification, including nike, yoga studios, lyft, &c) that this is increasingly the new front of the labour movement and that their rampant and illegal abuse is being watched with an increasingly jaundiced eye.
So don’t be afraid of the bs employee status they wave at you. It’s bullshit, it’s illegal, they know it, and I can refer you to some lawyers who are dying to rip t apart.
So, can I technically sue my club for saying they take 100% of my tips after minimum wage on their employee contract? Who are your lawyers? Are they working on suing Deja Vu?
Yes! They can’t do that! I told one of my lawyers about that today and she was incensed. Basically everything about employee status as strip clubs sell it is illegal and super gross and totally defeats the point of employee status.
I worked at an independent club here in Portland Oregon, and my lawyers are also here, not a national firm, but I can ask them for recommendations based on where you are if you want to private message me or email me [email protected]
Ugh that makes me so angry! Like I can argue for both statuses, there are good things about true IC status and good things about true employee status but the way strip clubs do it we get screwed six ways to Sunday so they can avoid paying payroll and go on extra vacations!"
I've worked as an employee at retail locations long enough to know that employee status comes with a TON of issues. Clubs can pick and choose which girls they want to work 30 hours while cutting the hours of other dancers (Seniority kind of works this way at clubs that make schedules now, but there will be more incentive to only schedule a certain number of hours between all employed dancers). This also means less employees, which sounds great... unless you're a dancer that won't make the cut. The requirements for hiring would be much higher since each club will only want to spend the employment cost on as few dancers as possible.
So if you do make the cut? No more working over 30 hours if you need fast cash that week (The club is not going to want to pay overtime OR give you any kind of full time status/benefits). Or worse, if you so much as give a complaint to management, say good bye to your shifts... now you're only scheduled for 4 hrs on a Monday (Or you could do nothing wrong at all to upset them, but the AC is broken and they need to cut costs). Essentially, the monetary gain you're likely to earn from minimum wage and not having to pay house fees would not come even close to the money you'll loose when you can't work over time or when you have your hours cut.
There are little things too. Think you can just leave and go to a better club? Contracts for employees can require you to only dance at their location. Also if you wanted to keep your identity a secret you now are automatically reported as a dancer to the IRS under your W-2 (Where as a private contractor you can give yourself a different title in your 1099). Therefore it is more likely to show up on your background check when you are hired as an employee dancer rather than an IC. You'll also be required to take breaks even if your staying busy/making money and would rather stay out on the floor. Also, when your shift is over, it's over; it doesn't matter if you're on a role. Clubs can also determine your "dress code" as well under employment status. Since you now work for the club instead of renting out space there, you are more likely to be pressured by management to follow procedures you may or may not be comfortable with (example: You are now required to do VIP even though as a private contractor you did not want to sell VIPs to customers.)
Oh, and as Melonie stated, tip pool. (If it can happen to servers, it can happen to any other kind of tipped employee too. This, in a sense, is a legal way of taking money away from individual employees and it happens all the time. Hell, the bouncers at my club are pool tip employees.)
There are a lot of other things but those are what come to mind right now.
Last edited by Leather_Jacket; 07-05-2015 at 05:05 PM.





Technically speaking, it is true that employers cannot 'take' tip money from an employee and KEEP that tip money. If this is happening the club is wide open for a lawsuit. However, this is not what I was referring to. Employers are absolutely allowed to 'collect' ( a portion of ) tip money received by employees, and REDISTRIBUTE that tip money to other employees via 'tip sharing' or 'tip pooling'.No, employers cannot take your tips. Here is a really good post about that from someone who is working with lawyers over suing clubs who do this.
In the context of an 'employer' club and 'employee' dancers, clubs can collect dancer tip money and REDISTRIBUTE that tip money to DJ's and bouncers ... as a substitute for independent contractor dancer tipout mandates to pay the DJ's and bouncers directly which are no longer legal in an 'employee' dancer scenario. This particular redistribution via 'tip pooling' widely exists already, where, for example, bartenders and servers must 'pool' their tips ... with part of that collected money then being used to 'subsidize' the pay of barbacks, bussers etc. There is a ton of legal precedent for this in the restaurant industry.
Also, in the context of an 'employer' club and 'employee' dancers, clubs can collect and REDISTRIBUTE dancer tip money to make sure that 'marginal' employee dancers are being paid a minimum of $9.00 an hour ( or whatever the local minimum wage is ) at the end of the pay period ... even if the 'marginal' dancer failed to earn enough direct tips and/or 'sales commissions' via private dance or VIP sales to cover the $9.00 per hour amount through her own efforts. There is a ton of legal precedent for this in the casino industry.
Yes the practice of 'tip pooling' and redistribution of tip money has, and continues to be, the topic of lawsuits. However, so far, the dominant legal position appears to be that tips pooling can be employed to ALL employees at the same business location ... without a distinction that bartender's tips belong solely to bartenders and cannot be redistributed to barbacks and bussers, and without a distinction that dancer's tips belong solely to dancers and connot be redistributed to DJ's and bouncers.
Ummm, wishful thinking again. Employer clubs now OWN the work product of employee dancers, in exchange for the hourly wage being paid to those dancers. As such, employee dancers cannot 'negotiate' pricing with club customers any more than an employee retail sales clerk can change price levels for store customers on store merchandise which has previously been priced by store management. I don't mean to be controversial, but at the bottom line there is a big difference between the 'promises' made by an attorney at the beginning of a lawsuit and the actual ruling of the judge at the conclusion of a lawsuit.Dancers would be able to set their own prices and negotiate what each dance involved, whether extras, how much extras cost, &c. An air dance could be 20, a contact dance 40, any extra contact could be extra. The club does not get to force dancers to lower prices. Dancers could ask for tips on top of dances.
Also, since employer clubs OWN the work product of employee dancers, they are under no legal obligation to pay additional moneys to dancers for performing private dances, VIP services, etc. By the letter of the law, an employer club legally owns 100% of any customer moneys spent on private dances, VIP etc., and employee dancers are obligated to perform those private dances and VIP services as a condition of their $9.00 per hour ( or whatever ) minimum wage hourly pay. In practice, because they must still compete with independent contractor clubs, employer clubs typically choose to pay 'sales commissions' to employee dancers for any private dance and/or VIP sales the dancer makes ... often a 50% 'sales commission' on every private dance sold. But this is not a legal requirement. As such, it is legal for employer clubs to establish other 'sales commission' arrangements with dancers, including such things as paying zero 'sales commissions' until a particular employee dancer sells a minimum quota of private dances during a particular pay period. There is an abundance of legal precedent for 'sales commissions', minimum sales quotas, etc. ... with the most widely known being auto dealers.
And, like auto dealers, a minimum sales quota can be legally utilized by the employer to financially 'force out' sales employees who are incapable of delivering a minimum number of sales. In terms of results, this is similar to the club charging a stiff house fee, which financially 'forces out' dancers who are incapable of selling enough private dances and/or VIP's to earn back the house fee money. In terms of implementation, of course, no actual house fee can be charged ... but the employer club can legally withhold 100% of customer money spent on, say, the first 5 private dances sold per shift and only begin paying a 100% sales commission' to dancers for the 6th and greater dances they were able to sell during their shift ... meaning that any dancer who fails to sell 6 or more private dances during that shift will only be paid the $9.00 ( or whatever ) minimum wage even though she did sell 3-4-5 private dances.
As you allude, the topic of 'extras' gains additional importance in an employee dancer scenario. The reason, of course, is that the club cannot officially acknowledge that ( illegal ) 'extras' are for sale in the employer's club. This in turn means that any and all customer money for 'extras' must be paid directly to the dancer, and cannot pass through the club's cash register or payroll system etc. As such, 'extras' money will not be reported on dancer W2's thus not subject to taxes if the dancer 'forgets' to report this additional income. 'Extras' money will also not be included in any 'tip pooling' arrangements. 'Extras' money remains 100% in the dancer's pocket, with no percentage 'cut' going to the club. And in a minimum sales quota situation, offering 'extras' is also likely to guarantee the particular dancer will achieve the minimum quota - thus earning even more money in 'sales commissions' on top of the 'extras' money. In other words, where 'employee' dancers are concerned, selling 'extras' becomes the primary method of earning major money.
Last edited by Melonie; 07-05-2015 at 10:53 PM.
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