The money at the club I work at in Richmond, Virgina has gone down substantially along with every other club in the area yet the management still insists we pay $10 house fees and $10 dollars or 10% to the D.J. (whichever is greater) even though we are not paid and have no guarantee of making even the $20 we owe for every booking. Yet the D.J. is guaranteed $100 a day minumum (not including his tips) and that is often TWICE what the dancers make-even if they work a double. It is not uncommon to not make enough to tip out. When we averaged $100 minimum a booking it was fine but now it takes me often three days to get to $100 dollars and that means we pay out 1/3 to 1/2 of what we earn. This does not include the chair dances of which they take half of the $20 fee, however they are not where we make our most of our money anyways as we spend half of our shift on stage.
I would like to remain dancing and at this club in particular but this lack of tips and having to work twice as many bookings for less money really feels like we are being taking advantage of - especially when I see all the money we give them not spent properly. For example, the AC has been broken for two summers and in the summer the stage basically becomes a slip-n-slide; The ceiling leaks everywhere even on the stage and the bathroom is so frightful I hold it until I get home; The stage which is nice and big is falling apart - lights snaking out and tripping us, pitted wood, splinters and shoddy repairs - like the time they repaired some holes in the stage with the slipperiest wood possible and it is not even flush with the rest of the stage. The owner of the club is seen about every three months so I wonder where he gets the money to hire OTHER people to run his club for him. Most people I know in the restaurant industry have to work their asses off to make their business survive.
I don't want to go to another club because the money is no better there and they make their money doing contact dances. They also have problems with their dancers (drugs, drama, thievery, breaking ABC laws, etc.) and/or nefarious owner/managers and they also put way too many girls together on a shift. We always have just four dancers. How can I get the club to give us a break during these hard times? I mean we are on the bottom of the pile monetarily and authority-wise yet we pay the D.J. his sole source of income (other than tips) AND we give the club a minimum total of $200 a day (not including lap dance fees and fines) of which I think goes directly into their pockets. I have called the city about the health and safety issues but they are slow in responding. The Labor Department says we are independent contractors and they can't do anything about it. I feel that the fees they extort from us must be illegal but nobody gives a damn and I have contacted the press as a last resort. Does anybody have any suggestions?


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