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Thread: Stripper Rights***rant***

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    Senior Member destiny2980's Avatar
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    Angry Stripper Rights***rant***

    So yesterday I asked for a copy of the contract I signed when I first started this club. Of course they didnt offer one but I knew they couldnt deny me one so the owner acted like it was no big deal and gave me one and didnt ask questions. So I go on with my night. I was talking with one of the girls about a lot of mixed stuff Ive been hearing about strippers rights and unions ect. Shes been dancing for years so I figured she would know. Well of course she didnt and goes straight to the manager and owner and says that Im starting a union and trying to get girls all in on it.
    So tonight I get called into the office and hes freaking out on me wanting to know if Im filing a lawsuit and this and that and to not be talking to the girls about it because it will just cause too many problems.He admited to me that his contract is out of date and that its just a copy of someone elses club contract. Wow how professional is that!!

    What pisses me off the most is he talked to me like I was an idiot. Like Im not educated because Im a damn stripper. He had the nerve to tell me "Well how about I make it simple for you and tell you what your rights are and explain the contract too you."WTF asshole you dont have to talk slow for me to understand your ass. Then he went all around it and told me nothing except baiscly I scared the shit out of him by even saying the word "union" or "strippers rights". (Although I would never dream of unionizing it was fun to see him all worked up over it )

    This is the shit that Im am so fed up with in this buisness. We work just as hard if not harder than the lazy overweight majority of the population. We deserve to be treated as the normal hardworking women that we are.

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    God/dess PookaShell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Yeah, it's also awesome when candidates for Governor are like "we're going to crack down on taxing exotic dancers, to where we're sqeazing as much as we can from their income" And then they turn around and make 4,000 more laws that make it impossible for us to even make money without risking a prostitution charge for our hair brushing a customer while we're on stage. Grrrr. We [should] form a union.

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    God/dess Bridgette's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    The union won't solve anything but make things worse. The clubs will simply find new ways to fuck us in retaliation, and of course in order to keep their incomes up. We are not dealing with scrupulous people here.

    I would prefer we ban together and get things like group health insurance rates for 'club' members. But that will happen about as soon as a large-scale stripper union being formed: when pigs fly. We are too selfish as a group to do anything positive as a group.


    I would've loved to be a fly on the wall during that convo with your manager though

    Quote Originally Posted by pheno View Post
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    God/dess Mare's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    That girl is a (there is no nice word here-fill in with the worst word you all hate to hear) for running to her "pimp" and letting him know you were asking questions. God forbid he had to give rights to his strippers. Then he'd actually be responsible for something.

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    God/dess ExoticEngineer's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Bridgette, you're so right about the pigs flying...and that truly bums me out. It's such a shame that we can't get our shit together and do things that are good for us AND keep dancing!

    Is it lack of motivation? Is it selfishness? Why can't we get organized and pull together to make some posotive changes?

    *********** I need to go drink my coffee and stew on this......




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    God/dess PookaShell's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    I could just be naive, but I think we could.

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    God/dess PleasureVictim's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Quote Originally Posted by ExoticEngineer
    Bridgette, you're so right about the pigs flying...and that truly bums me out. It's such a shame that we can't get our shit together and do things that are good for us AND keep dancing!

    Is it lack of motivation? Is it selfishness? Why can't we get organized and pull together to make some posotive changes?

    *********** I need to go drink my coffee and stew on this......
    It's not just the dancers to blame- the nature of the business makes it hard for something like that to work out.

    How many dancers only look for employment when they need bills paid? I don't know the percentage but I can bet it's alot. I don't know how it is in other cities- but where I dance at they come and go like crazy. I used to commute with another dancer and her friends would 'hop along' for a day or two when they wanted some extra cash. Then you wouldn't hear from them again.

    Also what would a union mean to the dancers who don't want to have an official record about their employment? Would a fuure company discover that on a background check? If so- that will deter many from joining.

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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    *****I was talking with one of the girls about a lot of mixed stuff Ive been hearing about strippers rights and unions ect. Shes been dancing for years so I figured she would know. Well of course she didnt and goes straight to the manager and owner and says that Im starting a union and trying to get girls all in on it.******

    Break her legs....

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    Senior Member destiny2980's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    hmm...Breaking legs may be a solution here

    I dont think that unionizing is the best thing here. But I do think that dancers need to come together to educate fellow dancers and themselves on what our rights are as women in the sex industry. We need to demand better treatment and respect from the clubs and benefits. I was told of a club down in Charlotte that there was a sign in the dressing room that said if the girls work 40 hours a week and after a set period of time that they were eligable for health insurance through the club. So in return they got depedable beautiful hard working girls flooding theyre club.

    This is cause and effect and for some reason clubs dont seem to understand that.

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    Featured Member mina loy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    we could learn from example from the girls at the lusty lady in san francisco. no, i don't work there but they're the only employee-owned club in the u.s. (i think).

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    While 'wishing' for better working conditions is certainly an worthwhile goal, when talking about 'unions' be careful what you wish for. First of all, only 'employees' can unionize.

    On the plus side, becoming an 'employee' would get you a minimum wage paycheck and workmen's comp / unemployment insurance coverage. There is no guarantee that it would get you any more benefits than that. Also this would mean that the club was NOT entitled to scarf any portion of dancer tip earnings, nor would the club be entitled to force payment of stage fees or mandatory tipouts to club employees.

    However, becoming an 'employee' would give the clubowner 'employer' control. This could mean a long list of things that you probably haven't thought of. For example, this could mean that the 'employer' is entitled to 100% of the revenue generated by dancer sales of private dances and VIP's, with girls being required to perform private dances and VIP's without extra pay as a condition of their employment. This could also mean that the club could absolutely require that dancers work pre-determined shifts on pre-determined days, with the choice of which dancers get to work which shifts on which days being assigned by such time tested union principles as 'seniority'. This could also mean the employer clubowner instituting a system of 'tip sharing' in order to meet his employer's responsibilities to the IRS (as has happened to tipped employee businesses in Vegas and elsewhere). By this I mean that every dancer would be required to put her earned tip money into a big jar, and at the end of the night the money in the jar would get divided into X equal shares paid out equally to each dancer.

    Remember that if and when 'union' principles come to clubs, like all other unions they tend to work on the 'majority rules' principle. However, this also means that if 1/2 of the dancers plus one are less than stunning, less than hustling etc. they have the power to vote themselves a portion of the tip money earned by the stunning, hustling dancers. They also have the power to vote themselves the night shift on thursday, friday and saturday, forcing the new but stunning, hustling dancer to work monday, tuesday and wednesday. And of course, in conjunction with the clubowner who now has minimum wage salaries plus comp and unemployment insurance premiums and 'employer's SSI and medicare taxes to pay on behalf of 'employee' dancers, probably at least 50% of all private dance and VIP earnings will be retained by the club to cover these new costs.

    This approach is arguably in direct conflict with what customers actually want, and is also a huge financial disincentive for new, stunning, hustling dancers to want to come to work in such a unionized club environment where the majority of their extra efforts / earnings are redistributed equally among all dancers rather than retained by the dancer who actually made the extra effort and produced the extra earnings.

    As the Lusty Lady (unionized club in SF) has been mentioned, it is noteworthy that this is exactly what happened at that club. Very few of the stunning, hustling dancers stuck around to see their individual earnings split up and shared with other girls who weren't as stunning, didn't hustle as much, i.e. weren't in as much customer demand. And once the stunning, hustling dancers left, so did quite a few customers. As a result, with declining business / income, but with fixed costs of paying minimum wage salaries plus comp / unemployment insurance premiums plus 'employer's share of SSI and medicare tax for the remaining dancers (who, to put it bluntly, weren't producing enough earnings to cover the actual cost of their own hourly base pay plus comp and unemployment benefits), the club went bankrupt.

    After the bankruptcy, the club was 'bought out' by the dancers themselves and reopened. After a financial reality check, the dancers realized that they had no choice but to cut their own hourly pay levels significantly in order to avoid going bankrupt again. They also realized that they had to restore a pay system where dancers who were able to sell more private dances were able to keep some portion of those extra earnings themselves in order to attract and retain better 'quality' dancers who could attract new customers.

    So yes, the Lusty Lady does have an important lesson to teach us all about the unionization of exotic dancing. It is arguable that the only true beneficiaries of the Lusty Lady's unionization and conversion to 'employee' status were the IRS and the Cal Franchise Tax Board !!!
    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 10-29-2006 at 03:24 PM.

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    Veteran Member sassfire's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Strip Clubs are the one undiscovered lucrative business that people and the government are afraid to touch. Sadly only the shady people (some good ones) see the vast profit that a strip club could make. All this can be done in a legal and responisble way. Yes somethings may be suggested that may effect some dancers.

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    ^^^ it is arguable that the only way that vast profits CAN be made in the strip club industry today is via 'shady' business practices ... most notably underreporting of club and dancer incomes to the IRS, in conjunction with 'bending' state prostitution laws and local anti-dance club ordinances ! Going the 'employer'/'employee' route immediately gives the gov't a bird's eye view of club and dancer incomes / finances via laws requiring automatic employer tax withholding and IRS income reporting, as well as bringing into play the 'social costs' of unemployment insurance, workmen's comp and whatever else state labor laws mandate in the way of 'employer' payments - the costs of which must be 'extracted' from club customers but not paid to dancers so that the 'employer' club can make these mandatory payments.

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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    In my state there is an independant contractor union. Its designed for anyone that is self employed. Its for the purpose if health benefits and whatnot. Melonie, do you live in NYC or elsewhere--Its publicised in the city, as far as I know. Any freelancer can join as long as you pay the dues. i was thinking about appliying to join--i'm not sure if dancers are in the guidelines tho.

    Dancers can be unionized without having anything to do with the club--dancers are too transient to be associated with any one club. However, unionizing industry workers is possible IMO.

    An (independent) sex worker's union is possible but I pose these questions:

    When there is an issue, you need people who are willing to speak to the press--will you go on TV and say that you are a stripper, escort, dominatrix, ect?

    Will the clubs, government and press take it seriously?

    Sex for money is illegal--will it polarize sex workers and attract LE?

    I personally think its a good idea, but not in association with a club...you may get stuck with the scenario that Melonie described. I think the way they did it was stupid though. The club could have just given dancers min wage shift pay and dancers keep all stage tips, but split CR & LD money...like how waiters keep thier tips in restraunts. Restraunts and dance clubs do fine on that model-why not a strip club? Maybe I'm simplfying it, though.

    I guess a big part of it is b/c the club is not the business--its the stuff that often goes on in behind closed doors; $$ laundering, drug ops, prostitution. thats why clubs are ran so poorly. Its all a front for something else.

    I personally could care less about a shift pay--I just want to keep all that I earn--I think house fees are robbery.

    however, i would join a union in a hearbeat--unions get good rates on health insurance, LOL.

    OH! Go on and sign any "contract" a club tries to give you...i showed one to a labor lawyer--they not legal binding. You might as well wipe your ass with it.
    I'm getting my Dial-A-Stripper service up and running again. If you are in NYC or NJ and are interested in private party dancing, email [email protected] with your SW handle, contact info, photo (if you have one) & best time to call and I'll get back to you asap.

    If you're having a party and need strippers, email me with the details and any questions you have. Thanks!

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    Veteran Member sassfire's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Melonie, I don't think a club has to engage in illegal stuff to make money. Yes of course, at first some customer may not patronize a cleaner organized club (do we really want them anyway). However in the long run the customers will appreciate the changes and the dancers will too. Everyone will be happy.

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    God/dess Deogol's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    I think a PAC would do better than a union.

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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    I think I've posted this before, and it's a bit out of date (1998, I think), but here is a link to a paper I presented in which I'm describing why I think it's so hard to unionize strippers. This article is not about facts, but about possibilities, I'm just speculating in it:

    http://www.gstringsforever.com/stripperunion.html

    Quote Originally Posted by ExoticEngineer
    Bridgette, you're so right about the pigs flying...and that truly bums me out. It's such a shame that we can't get our shit together and do things that are good for us AND keep dancing!

    Is it lack of motivation? Is it selfishness? Why can't we get organized and pull together to make some posotive changes?

    *********** I need to go drink my coffee and stew on this......
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    ^ Strippers *can* get together and do things - look at the Lusty Lady, $pread magazine, COYOTE, group lawsuits in SF, etc. I think a professional group for dancers with group rate health insurance and maybe some other perks would be a great thing, and it would only take a few people to set up. Geez, I hope those people come along soon. ;-)



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    God/dess Bridgette's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Yeah, at the Lusty Lady, with their union, the starting pay now is $11/hr. How many of us are willing to get naked for that? Not I. Hell I make twice that at a regular job, fully clothed. No thanks!!!

    At the San Francisco clubs where they sued clubowners over illegal house fees, the girls now pay MORE THAN EVER to the clubs. I am sure the girls who got their $40k settlements and moved on don't give a shit about that, but the girls who are dancing there now surely do.

    I want no part of a stripper union. I know that most girls feel the same way I do - probably not for the same reasons, but nonetheless, THAT is why we will never organize on any large-scale level. There's just not enough of us who want it. I don't want it.

    As stated earlier, I would be interested in an organization amongst ourselves in which we can get group health insurance rates and such, but that's it.

    Quote Originally Posted by pheno View Post
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    I don't know that dancers will ever unionize but it sure would be great if some of them would become labor lawyers and activists.

  21. #21
    Crissychan
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    I know there are a couple of sex workers unions you can join,

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    God/dess doc-catfish's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Quote Originally Posted by sassfire
    Yes of course, at first some customer may not patronize a cleaner organized club (do we really want them anyway). However in the long run the customers will appreciate the changes and the dancers will too. Everyone will be happy.
    This "pie in the sky" theory has been brought up before, but I can never get any proponents of it to state details of how it would work. Can you elaborate?

    Quote Originally Posted by Deogol
    I think a PAC would do better than a union.
    Agreed. The main reason so many people who operate strip clubs run them like racket enterprises is because the business has always waddled in a grey area between legality and prohibition (and is slipping towards the latter all the time). As long as it remains that way, "ordinary folks" who would run their operation compliant to labor and tax laws aren't going to touch it with a ten foot pole. That alone gives the racketeers more power. The fact that so many localities have passed zoning laws which make opening up a new club damned near impossible, and have grandfather clauses protecting the existing ones, gives them even more power.

    Until that situation changes, forget about organized dancers. The situation in San Francisco is just not a realistic probability in the rest of the country.

    Quote Originally Posted by AkashaM
    I personally think its a good idea, but not in association with a club...you may get stuck with the scenario that Melonie described. I think the way they did it was stupid though. The club could have just given dancers min wage shift pay and dancers keep all stage tips, but split CR & LD money...like how waiters keep thier tips in restraunts.
    For the uninitiated, it should be pointed out that the Lusty Lady is a non-contact peep show, and not a conventional strip club where dancers hustle to make sales. Therefore there are no lap dances or champagne rooms.
    Former SCJ now in rehab.

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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    People don't seem to realize that unionizing made Lusty Lady BANKRUPT. It didn't work. The workers bought their club back and went, 'shit, this REALLY doesn't work' and even changed the rules they unionized to make!


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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    For the uninitiated, it should be pointed out that the Lusty Lady is a non-contact peep show, and not a conventional strip club where dancers hustle to make sales. Therefore there are no lap dances or champagne rooms.
    mostly true re the non-contact peep show. However, one of the things that the Lusty Lady dancers re-instituted was the ability of individual dancers to sell 'private shows', with the dancer who made the 'sale' being allowed to keep some percentage of the customer money spent for the 'private show' herself rather than having it go into a 'pool' to be equally shared among all dancers.


    eah, at the Lusty Lady, with their union, the starting pay now is $11/hr. How many of us are willing to get naked for that? Not I. Hell I make twice that at a regular job, fully clothed. No thanks!!!
    Yup, this is what happens when the actual costs of all applicable employer taxes and worker's comp premiums and unemployment insurance premiums must be paid and accounted for - combined with a work environment where the extra earnings stemming from extra effort on the part of one worker wound up being redistributed to all workers instead of going (mostly) into the pocket of the worker who chose to make the extra effort.
    Last edited by Melonie; 10-30-2006 at 03:33 PM.

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    Featured Member AkashaM's Avatar
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    Default Re: Stripper Rights***rant***

    Maybe the word "union" is the wrong choice of words. I dont understand why people are against the concept of a group that could get health insurance and monitor working conditions of strip clubs; refering to club mistreatment, housefees/fines, and calling out the abusive policies of clubs and agencies. i guess a watchdog organization of sorts.

    I dont think anyone is interested in hourly pay--you cant really put a value on our work; it is what it is. i don't want that either. however, i would like my rights protected as a woman in this business--some clubs really take the pimp mentality too far.
    I'm getting my Dial-A-Stripper service up and running again. If you are in NYC or NJ and are interested in private party dancing, email [email protected] with your SW handle, contact info, photo (if you have one) & best time to call and I'll get back to you asap.

    If you're having a party and need strippers, email me with the details and any questions you have. Thanks!

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