Shakers Studies: FLSA Factor #6

The sixth factor in determining whether a worker is an employee, under the fair labor standards act, is described as:

“The amount of initiative, judgement, or foresight in open market competition with others required for the success of the claimed independent contractor.”

This factor is referring my hustle— my hustle that Shakers manager Dillon Maynard attempted to audio record me talking about near the end when he began asking me about my thoughts on hustling. In legal proceedings, I am often battered by the defendant, who usually attempts to make me seem poor, dumb and unattractive. Many people in society who have not been to a strip club, and who have a Hollywood idea of what a stripper is, do not understand my hustle. Most people who have never been in my direct strip club working environment do not know or understand my magick. That’s ok with me.

Folks, I am a woman who does my taxes and who is currently embroiled in pending legal proceedings. There is nothing to gain by explaining it, so let’s just move on, to factor se7en.

Shakers Studies: FLSA Factor #5

The fifth factor in determining whether a worker is an employee, under the fair labor standards act, is described as:

"The alleged contractor's opportunities for profit and loss."

This factor and subsequent factors are kind of similar, but I'll try to interpret what this means. Several things that Shakers did might apply to this factor.

Most strip clubs spend significant amounts of money advertising their business to the public, in order to attract patrons. This has usually been in my favor during lawsuits, because the club is the one spending time and money to attract the patrons. Clubs have tried to argue that strippers advertise with social media, but since social media is usually free and not always dependable, it hasn't always worked out for the club to say this. Shakers was a lot different though, because as far as I was able to see, they didn't spend money on advertising AT ALL.

While I worked at Shakers, there wasn't always a lot of opportunity for profit. Shakers was often dead and dancers would complain that the club needed to be advertising more. Secretly, I was thinking about how interesting it all was that Shakers didn't make overt efforts to attract clients. Some of the dancers had regulars who had been coming there for a long time, and came in to visit them. Shakers does have a facebook presence, but that was all that I think they do. I don't have enough information about their past advertising attempts to compare. Shakers had a friend-spy to come in and talk to me about advertising, so I think maybe they stopped after the lawsuit. The slowness of the club had everyone at an economic disadvantage, and I legitimately worried how much of a struggle it must have been for the Robinson family to survive like they were off of their club.

Having to go on stage when called and having a piece of paper with dance prices on them were two things that other dancers experienced which affected their opportunities for profit and loss. Since I was treated special and heard special monologues all the time, this factor didn't apply to me according to most lawyers.

Factors six and seven are kind of similar to factor five, so I will describe other things at Shakers in those posts while acknowledging that they can also be applied to this one.

Shakers Studies: FLSA Factor #4

The fourth factor in determining whether a worker is an employee, under the fair labor standards act, is described as:

"The nature and degree of control by the principal."

The "principal" was Shakers. We will explore some of the control situations below.

When I first started working at Shakers, before they knew who I was, I was told to participate in the stage rotation, with music selected by the DJ, rotation selected by the DJ and set lengths selected by the DJ. However, shortly after I started working there, when they discovered who I am, the DJ and manager began coming up to me and delivering paragraph-length monologues, explaining to me that stage rotation was not mandatory. I participated in the stage rotation until the last week or so of work. When I stopped participating, I encouraged others to stop participating as well. Prior to this, I asked around to find out if other dancers were receiving such a disclaimer about stage rotation, or if they were instructed to just do it no matter what. The latter was the case.

Prior to being sued, Shakers had dress code rules, in an attempt to control how the dancers looked. When I worked there, from the very beginning, I saw no such dress code. There were multiple dancers wearing footwear such as ballerina slippers, sock-like slippers, athletic shoes and boots. There was one dancer who sometimes dressed like a dinosaur in a full-body onesie. This is the type of activity that a self-employed person would engage in, and while a dinosaur walking around was probably not good for business, it was interesting to see the lack of rules unfold before me. The most disgusting outfit was the mentally ill woman who dressed like a baby and brought diapers to work, which will be covered in a future post specific to her. As nauseating as that was, I thought to myself, "Ok, this place REALLY does not want to get sued again."

I've been bullied a lot in the strip club world for not always shaving off all of my body hair. I've been fired from places for it. Shakers was a place run by bearded men in v-neck t-shirts, filled with dancers with more bush than I had ever seen in my life. In many ways I was able to exhale at Shakers like I had never experienced before-- not even in places like Boulder, Colorado or Portland, Oregon. There were definitely times when I thought, "This is how it's supposed to be. I could stay here forever."

Thoughts about staying weren't realistic though, because the backdrop to all of it were the ticking time bomb noises and the paranoia that Shakers exhibited about me being there at all.

Shakers had dedicated dance areas depending on whether or not it was individual songs being sold, or price of the "VIP" rooms. They took a modest cut of $5 for the individual songs sold, and a reasonable cut of the rooms sold. Near the end, I did a funny thing where instead of giving dances in their designated areas, I started doing them out on the main floor at the tables or wherever my customers were sitting. If I was really a self-employed person, that was my right to do that without being controlled. This upset Shakers, because they weren't getting cuts of those songs. Low-IQ dancers, who were eager to get me in trouble, would scurry over to management, urging them to take action. Because Shakers didn't want to get sued, they just pitifully watched me do it, knowing they could do nothing (directly) to stop it. Eventually their dancer friends began harassing me. Whenever I told management about the harassment, they reminded me that they could not control self-employed people. I was instructed to tell the police about my problems, by manager Dillon Maynard, who viciously smirked when suggesting it, knowing that I dislike police.

Prior to Shakers discovering my blog, I was bullied by DJ Steven Loe for reading in the club. I made a post about it without naming him. That post can be found in the search bar with the key words "reading in the club." After Shakers discovered who I am, their attitude toward my studies changed dramatically. I had to take entrance exams to get into the trades earlier this year, so I had to brush up on my fractions and algebra. Not only did I read prose books at Shakers, but I started bringing in math text books and doing thousands of problems during my down time. It REALLY pissed some people off. But, by the beginning of 2018, I was a wiz of all the trades tests.

From the beginning, Shakers was cool about coming into work whenever and leaving whenever, as they should be. I've covered this in past posts without naming them, such as the post "prostitution accusations as a control tactic." This leniency was a signal that they were trying their best not to get sued again by anyone.

Shakers is a fully nude club, but I didn't get fully nude on stage very often. Other dancers, particularly dumb ones, cowardly ones, or ones who had worked there prior to their losing the lawsuit-- the majority of the dancers-- always got fully nude on stage. They thought it was mandatory. Customers complained that I wouldn't get fully nude on stage, and would tattle on me to their loser friend, DJ Steven Loe. While Shakers really wanted to make me get fully nude on stage, that was another rule they avoided enforcing, to avoid a lawsuit. All the while, I would wonder what it was like to be a person so pathetic, he would go to a strip club as a customer and complain to a DJ that the woman on stage wasn't showing her genitals. The mindset of that was fascinating to me, absurdly hilarious and grotesque. Other dancers would get mad about me not getting nude too sometimes, like somehow I was slighting them personally. Clubs that aren't fully nude, but misclassify, will usually have rules regarding when the top is supposed to come off.

Shakers had dance prices listed on a piece of paper, but did nothing to enforce those dance prices. For example, there is a club in Minnesota I worked at prior to Shakers, which sent dancers home if they sold songs for more than $10. That place definitely misclassified and deserves to lose a lawsuit.

One of my favorite things that Shakers did was refuse to touch our dance money. A lot of clubs make dancers turn over their money, and won't give it to us until the end of the night. It is sickeningly degrading and humiliating to be infantilized in that way. Shakers wouldn't allow customers to hand over money to them at the counter prior to dances. They would instruct the dancers to receive the money from the customers, and then hand it to the club. This delicate practice should be a bare minimum, but often isn't.

Most of the rules described in the original judgement were removed by the time I got to Shakers. If you have a question about a specific rule, feel free to email me. There were so many differences in control between the Elizabeth Mays decision and when I worked there, and I have not listed all of them in this post. The rules they did keep were removed for me specifically, verbally described to me in detail, once Shakers realized who I am. Shakers wouldn't let me get away with it long-term of course, but it was fun while it lasted. Sometimes at Shakers, I was able to distill all of the joy I felt there so intensely that my skin burned.

Shakers Studies: FLSA Factor #3

The third factor in determining whether a worker is an employee, under the fair labor standards act, is described as:

"The amount of the alleged contractor's investment in facilities and equipment."

Facilities and equipment at Shakers included things like stage, lighting, furniture, bar, DJ equipment and the building itself. All of these things were bought by the club. The dancers, who the club alleges were not employees, invested little if any money in objects or supplies used solely for their jobs.

While strip clubs sometimes attempt to argue that objects like makeup and lingerie are proof that dancers are contractors investing in their own businesses, these objects are basic hygiene and living expenses that any other employee would use. Strip clubs like to ask plaintiff dancers if they deducted any of their personal hygiene and grooming objects on their taxes. However, these kinds of objects cannot be deducted if used outside of the workplace.

The investment that the club makes in maintaining the business running is overwhelmingly in favor of employee status.

Shakers Studies: FLSA Factor #2

The second factor in determining whether a worker is an employee, under the fair labor standards act, is described as:

"The permanency of the relationship."

When I signed my first contract at Shakers when I first walked into the building, I was informed that I would have to sign another one in a month or so. In addition to the normal contract, Shakers also had dancers sign a specific contract for nights they weren't normally open. Shakers was willing to distribute contracts to dancers whenever one was requested.

The Shakers contract was very specific about how it would expire in a few months time. Dancers at Shakers informed me, several times, that they had to fill out new contracts every so often. Clubs create contracts that expire, to preserve their right to argue that their relationship with the dancers was not permanent. While Shakers preserved this right by including an expiration date on each of their contracts, it could be argued that Shakers kept dancers aboard who did not argue or protest their working conditions, while they banned dancers who gave them problems.

At the end of my time at Shakers, I asked my manager, Dillon Maynard, if I was going to be the only one not getting a job on January first. He wouldn't give me a yes or no answer about any of it or explain much of anything.

If you have worked at Shakers and feel as though you were not allowed back after your contract expired, but other dancers were allowed back, it is entirely possible that you were being misclassified, but that Shakers is hiding behind the ambiguity by using expiring contracts.

Shakers did not want me to be working there, but didn't want to risk firing me. One day after discussing the contracts with my manager Dillon Maynard, the DJ Steven Loe played a bunch of songs about New Year's Day being wonderful. He also played ticking time bomb noises, which he had done before, while staring me down.

It is these kinds of ambiguities and subtleties that Shakers utilized to dance around labor laws conflicting with the way they wanted to run things.

Shakers Studies: FLSA Factor #1

The first factor in determining whether a worker is an employee, under the fair labor standards act, is described as:

"The extent to which the services rendered are an integral part of the principal's business."

Shakers exists solely to make money off of dancers and the customers who come to see them. This factor is the easiest to determine. Sometimes clubs that serve liquor or food will argue that their focal point is making money off of liquor and food, but even those clubs lose that particular argument. Of course Shakers, which does not serve liquor, would not have this factor in their favor.

Shakers Studies: Appeal

Since last month's post, I have received news that the appeal Shakers filed finished. The results of the appeal are somewhat disappointing. While it was decided that Elizabeth Mays was an employee, the appeal took away a bunch of her money that she should be receiving. Nebraska sucks, and so even if someone is found to have been misclassified, that doesn't necessarily mean one would be given money that was stolen from them by greedy small businesses.

Small business owners often like to abuse employees. They get away with it, by victimizing themselves in comparison to large corporations and the government. Supporting small businesses does nothing positive for worker rights.

Original Judgement

Appeal

Pasted below is my Whores of Yore article from last month:

In August of 2017, I began working at a strip club called Shakers. When I was hired, Shakers classified dancers as “lease holders.” By the end of my time at the club in December of 2017, they decided to start classifying dancers as employees, starting January 1st. While Shakers will never admit that my pressure had anything to do with the switch, my newest series on StripperLaborRights.com will discuss circumstances surrounding the switch, during the period of time that I worked there. This series will explore each Economic Realities factor of interest at Shakers, and each person of interest within this time frame.

Waverly, Nebraska-- population 3,500-- is home to Shakers. Prior to European arrival, the area was home to indigenous people including the Sioux, Lakota and Pawnee.

Some would describe Shakers as “in the middle of nowhere.” The club is a large pink barn-like structure that sits among miles upon miles of corn, with a freight train running through town, which is across the road parallel to the the club, just a turn off of Cornhusker Highway in the eerie open sky of Eastern Nebraska-- a place where tornadoes brew in the Spring time.

In early 2017, Shakers lost a misclassification suit that it had been fighting. Elizabeth Mays, represented by attorney Kathleen Neary, claimed that she was a misclassified employee at Shaker's while she danced there. Among behaviors dictated to Mays while she worked at Shakers included making dancers clean the bathroom, preventing them from leaving or entering the dressing room whenever they wanted, telling them to “act like ladies,” being subject to song selections and a stage rotation dictated by the Shakers DJ. The judge ruled in Elizabeth Mays's favor, meaning that she was entitled to all of her back wages, fees and staff tips.

Different strip clubs respond to lost misclassification suits in different ways. Larger clubs that can afford to, will usually conduct misclassification business as usual and pay off settlements to make their problems go away on the rare occasion that they arise. After losing a multi-million-dollar class action, Rick's Cabaret chose to correctly classify their dancers, by acknowledging them as employees.

Sometimes after losing a lawsuit, a club will go in a different direction. That direction involves removing most, if not all, of their rules that misclassified employee dancers had to follow prior to the lawsuit. In doing so, the club hopes to avoid future misclassification suits. To a degree, that is the direction that Shaker's chose to go. However, so long as they choose not to call their dancers employees, clubs like this will always be liable for a misclassification suit.

Many employee status experts would argue that there is no way strip club dancers will ever be anything except employees, due to the fact that dancers are an integral part of the business. Even when all of the rules are removed, according to many employee status experts, the dancers are essentially still employees, who could unionize if they ever wanted to. Continuing to classify dancers as non-employees was a risk that Shakers knowingly took after losing their suit. It was a risk that they decided to stop taking after I worked for them-- at least for a while.

Shakers was strip club #69 for me, year #12, state #8, vehicle #4. Blacklisted out of most of my beloved blue state territory, my labor activism and lawsuit fame forced me to resort to dancing in red states. I had been hearing about Shaker's through the grapevine for a few years before they were sued. I forgot that they had been sued until after I started working there. Several transient dancers who I spoke with in places like Colorado, Chicago, Minnesota or Nevada told me the same things-- that Nebraska is boring as hell, but the money is amazing, and that the money at Shaker's was amazing. For a lonely pink barn in the middle of corn, Shaker's is somewhat well known to USA traveling strippers on the open road, because of it's accessibility and ability to provide an economic windfall for women in need. Waverly is just a few minutes away from Lincoln, and for a red state, Lincoln is a relaxed, progressive college town.

I have strong reason to believe that several weeks into my Shakers work life, the staff found out about my history and website. As a result, I had an experience at Shakers that was different than a lot of dancers who worked there. The staff explicitly told me that I didn't have to do things which they gave no explanation to other dancers about, such as participate in stage rotation. For the most part, I participated anyway, but near the end, I was taking them up on their offers not to do stage. I was also exercising other Economic Realities freedoms, in ways that seemed to upset Shakers. New dancers who were unaware of The Economic Realities Test were asking me questions about how I was able to skip stage. I didn't want them to think that I had special privileges, so I began explaining to them that Shakers got sued and that the workplace obligations dancers thought were rules were not legally rules. I created and distributedKnow Your Rights fliers, to notify them that they too could break these rules. Like most strip clubs, Shakers had a core group of loyal dumb scabs who harassed, assaulted, threatened and slandered me in reaction to my speaking out and not conforming. They were all shook up into a frenzied anger, as stripper scabs become when cool things happen that they wish they could have enough confidence to do themselves. It was an extremely tense situation, all the more because Shakers is such a small structure in terms of square footage.

By the end of my time at Shakers, management announced that they would be switching over to employee classification, starting on the first of January when the “lease” contracts expired. It was a Holy Shit moment for me for sure. I never had that happen before. My manager told me that they “had been trying to do it for a few years now.” I don't believe him. It doesn't take years for a small business to make a simple switch to recognize that their workers are employees. I firmly believe that they made the switch because I started talking about their lost lawsuit and I was behaving like a non-employee, spreading non-employee distinctions with fliers throughout the club to encourage other dancers to know their rights.

Their employee switch came with a catch, which they advertised on their facebook. It appeared as though Shakers was intentionally advertising employee status as unappealing, by offering only part time hours that they picked, and other unsavory rules that they didn't need to enforce. I did not stick around to feel what it was like to be an employee dancer at Shakers. They hinted that I may not get the hours that I wanted. This was a threat to my survival. I would not have been unable to sustain myself financially. While I am an amazing hustler, Shakers is a toxic place that was filled with irrational women angry at me for talking about or exercising my rights, so these sad pathetic women did whatever they could to sabotage my income during my last week working there.

About a week after January first, I called Shakers. I wanted to know how the employee status switch was going. The manager informed me that about a week after switching to employee status, the club took the employee status away and began calling dancers “members” of their membership club. I had never heard of such a classification before, but it sounded like some more lease holder misclassification bullshit. After I asked a few more questions, the manager hung up on me. As far as I know, they are currently calling their dancers “members” instead of employees.

This Shakers Studies series will be of interest to any labor law advocate who is wondering how a small club reacts to a lost misclassification suit and subsequently having me come to town. It is interesting from a sociological, anthropological and cultural perspective, because Shakers is a place that was willing to comply with labor laws more than most clubs, but a place where the very workers who are oppressed by widespread dancer misclassification and could have fought for their rights, chose to behave like psychotic freaks instead. No pension, healthcare, paid sick days or job security will ever come to any of the batshit crazy lowlife women who threatened me, my life and my income.

Shakers was a turning point for me, and we will explore the many tentacles of that in the new series: Shakers Studies.

Shakers Studies: An Introduction

I'd like to preface Shakers Studies by giving thanks to Kate from Whores of Yore, for her continued presence in the community and for giving me a platform over the past couple of years. Here is the link to Shakers Studies: An Introduction, on Whores of Yore: Click.

Press Rejections

A few months ago, I announced that StripperLaborRights.com would be featured in the New York Times. A journalist from that publication had contacted me back in January about an article, and I had spent hours on the phone, letting her interview me. However, in the subsequent months after that post, our communication fizzled and she decided to do articles about pregnancy in the workplace instead. I told her to fuck off.

A few weeks ago, some journalist with Associated Press contacted me about sex workers being excluded from the #MeToo movement. However, since she misread my website and thought I had retired from dancing already, she didn't actually want to interview for her piece. She just wanted to waste my emotional labor and time by contacting me. I emailed her a string of expletives, and then she emailed me one more time to tell me that she really liked my website.

There were a couple of inaccurate and unauthorized articles published on the internet, about a lawsuit in Southern Minnesota that I am currently involved in.

Late last year, around the time that the #NYCStripperStrike and #MeToo really took off, what happened was a lot of journalists thought they could catapult their careers, by wasting the time of sex workers who are perfectly capable of writing for themselves. Journalists have a history of exploiting vulnerable people for click bait, wasting our time, emotional labor and energy. I am haunted all the time by that horrible, inaccurate and grotesque article that Bryce Covert put out about me on ThinkProgress, and I'd love to meet her in a back alley some time to sort it out.

Is Greg Flaig in Jail?

An anonymous tipster told me that Greg Flaig was put in jail. Flaig does this thing where he tells dancers that he has a special relationship with the local police, then he speaks to dancers on behalf of the police about club rules. The trouble is, he makes stuff up. The police found out about it, called some clubs and told them Greg's a liar. I had nothing to do with that, but I do have some audio recordings of him speaking to me about how I wasn't supposed to be using the customer bathroom. He suggested that the police would come in to help him explain things to me. Recently, I learned about the broader scope of his misrepresentations. If anyone has information about his time in jail or related subjects, please contact me by clicking the contact tab at the top of this page.

I wonder if Greg's wife Carrie is worried!

Some Bullshit in The Injustice System

Many businesses really enjoy misclassifying their employees and denying them their rights. This can lead to death, suffering, discrimination, injuries, union busting and sexual assault in the workplace. Strip clubs definitely love this, but business owners in other industries love it too. Arbitration is a bunch of bullshit, and today a new union-busting decision said that it is OK for workplaces to continue pushing forced arbitration and anti-class-action clauses in their contracts.

Please remember to vote, everybody. It matters. Thanks to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer for trying. This wouldn't have happened if Merrick Garland was seated with them.

Today is a sad day.

Who are The Wobblies?

When most people think of unions, the AFL-CIO may come to mind. However, there is another organization called the Industrial Workers of the World, otherwise known as the IWW or The Wobblies.

The dancers at Lusty Lady Lounge were Wobblies, as are most unions made up of extremely far left people. The Wobblies have been around for a little over one-hundred years, and were founded in Chicago. I highly recommend choosing the IWW for strippers who are unionizing, rather than the AFL-CIO-- because smashing the white supremacist, imperialist, war mongering, capitalist patriarchy is really important for the survival of our species and planet! Their website is IWW.org.

ABC in California!

Congratulations to California adult entertainers and strippers! It just became much easier to argue your employee status. This new ruling will encourage more lawyers to take cases when they might not have before. Hopefully more brazen dancers will sue their misclassifying clubs and have an easier time unionizing. Good luck to you all!

For the rest of the country-- please remember to vote for the farthest left candidates as possible so we can be as cool as the 9th circuit.

Hang Me For It.

Happy May Day, everybody! In May of 1886, the Haymarket affair happened in Chicagoland, with Louis Lingg being the most photogenic:

"... I despise you, I despise your order, your laws, your force propped authority. Hang me for it."

Although I am currently in the process of transitioning out of dancing, my heart will always be very connected to the strip club industry. One of the most common questions I get asked in the workplace by customers is: What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?

Let me tell you.

Becoming a stripper was the second best decision that I have ever made in my life. I have never regretted it, and never will. As an alternative to the poverty wages in many other industries available to me, stripping has given me enough money and free time to achieve almost all of my childhood dreams, the ability to pay for car repairs at a moment's notice, veterinarian bills for countless companion animal medical emergencies, the ability to visit all 48 of the connected United States, backpack in Western Europe, eat from the finest vegan menus on Earth, donate to causes I care about, spend months hiking along the Mississippi River, take Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes, learn how to choke out men with my bare hands. It has given me the free time to spend days and weeks reading and writing. Being a stripper has exposed me to the realities of labor organizing, be them tragedy or triumph. Being a stripper has taught me to be strong, stoic and graceful in the workplace while everyone around me wants me to fall apart. Being a stripper has taught me more about human psychology than one would ever learn in a classroom, and more about countering male domination than any women's studies degree ever could. It has taught me how misleading the media is. I've paid off my student loans from that useless English degree. I've maintained my algebra skills, as I divide hours by dollars by VIP booths and stage rotations, figuring out bills as I multiply twenties, adding in time constraints and deadlines. I've been exposed to all kinds of music that I may have never heard, and learned how powerful song lyrics can be. I've met people from all over the world and motivated them to admit their deepest secrets to me in their most candid of moments. I've been paid hundreds of dollars to remove soiled menstrual products from my body and give them to customers. I've learned to be not only shameless about my body, but proud. I've met countless washed up celebrities. I've learned how to spin very fast around a high metal pole, and had the privilege of watching other pole dancers with an artistic expertise more striking than any Mozart symphony or Michelangelo painting. I'll always be thankful for what stripping has done for me, a proletariat, within a late capitalist society. It was always the best option. Yeah, I've been pretty damned lucky, and I'm gonna miss it.

To the individuals who think it's funny or cool to shame someone simply for being a stripper-- it is because you are an astonishingly stupid person. If you are a woman who thinks you are better than a stripper, you can fuck off too. If you are a stripper who has ever experienced problems from people who do those things, just understand that the world is full of very stupid people. You are much smarter than them, and they can fuck off, no matter who they are.

This will probably be my last May Day as a stripper before joining an AFL-CIO organization. This is partially because I am being forced into an early stripper retirement from all of the blacklisting and harassment related to stripper labor rights. I have no rose-colored misconceptions about my new career choice. In all likelihood, I will make less money, work more hours and experience disrespect in ways that mirror my current occupation. Sadly, I know of no modern or desirable anarchist utopia that would save me from my current snafu or give me the standard of living that I am accustomed to. Most anarchists who I have met in life were not enjoyable company.

So much of being a stripper is about rebellion-- rebellion from submitting to misogynist slut shaming, rebellion from all the stigma, rebellion from being expected to submit to a man's requests for physical contact, rebellion from a traditional 9-5-- rebellion from the eight hour work day.

Often times in my adult life, I have had an eight hour work week. Sometimes in my adult life, I have eight hour work months.

Being pro-worker but anti-work, I'm going to sit this one out today folks, while enjoying my favorite take on work by Bob Black:

Are Strippers Ever Non-Employees?

Earlier posts on the site suggest that dancers who work in clubs are always employees, because the nature of a club atmosphere and because dancers are integral to the business. Later posts suggest that if a club takes away enough Economic Realities rules, perhaps a true "lease holder" relationship is possible.

My advice to dancers suing their clubs, is that arbitrators and juries will not like ideologues who believe the former. They may think you are a wingnut. When testifying, you will be asked about this. It is up to you how you want to accurately navigate answering this question.

If you are working at a new club that knows about your past litigation, the club will intentionally allow you to do whatever you want, to create the idea that you are a contractor/lease holder, and that their club is different than the others you have sued. Clubs have done this to me, so that lawyers won't risk representing me. After time goes by, the club will either terminate me or encourage dancer-scabs to harass and assault me so much that I leave because it is too dangerous to stay. As time goes by, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a job in the industry while maintaining mental/emotional well-being. 

We Are Dancers (WADUSA.org) and Codi Schei are investing much of their energy into promoting the idea that every dancer should be a "small business" and not an employee. Codi Schei, as mentioned in a previous post, is a bougie Downer's Grove person. She does full service sex work and has worked in clubs that misclassify dancers, as well as clubs that are brothels. I consider Codi Schei a Trojan Horse to the issues of Stripper Labor Rights. My advice to dancers new to labor rights, is that it's totally OK for you to not want to work in a brothel or not want to be around a bunch of scabs who don't understand misclassification. Groups like SWOP would disagree with dancers like me on that issue, but fuck 'em.

Lusty Lady Lounge is still the only stripper workplace to have successfully unionized. Most people from Lusty Lady will tell you that however many rules a club takes away on the Economic Realities Test, dancers will always be employees. I may have interpersonal problems with my West coast associations, but still understand how powerful their writing can be. Thanks, Lusty Ladies, for showing what can be possible when educated dancers come together against oppressors and stand up for themselves. Here is a great guide for newcomers:

No Justice No Piece

Meet Greg Flaig

Greg Flaig is a loser from Ohio who works as a "consultant" for strip clubs.

For those unfamiliar with union busting, companies will often hire a "consultant" to do just that. Greg Flaig is a strip-club-specific union buster. He likes to spread lies and misinformation about me in Ohio and surrounding states, so that other dancers become afraid of me and want to kill me. Some of Greg Flaig's business behaviors are illegal though, so his consulting group is getting sued. I am also happy to announce that I am suing him, because the type of conspiracy that he is engaging in is illegal. Clubs that Greg Flaig has consulted are also getting sued for misclassification and illegal termination.

I don't shut down clubs, I don't video tape dancers at work, and I don't have a secret spy come in to record clubs for me. If you ever meet Greg Flaig, know that he is a lying piece of shit. If I get murdered in Ohio or surrounding states, please understand that there is a possibility my blood will be on Greg Flaig's hands.

Your Club Won't Shut Down.

One major source of the harassment and threats that I receive from dancers, is the notion that stripper labor rights will shut down clubs.

Misclassification or other stripper lawsuits do not shut down clubs. The reasons clubs shut down are usually related to IRS or vice raids. Stripper Labor Rights is unrelated to those issues.

A classic union-busting tactic that businesses often use, is to say that they will shut down if labor conditions are improved. Gullible workers fall for these kinds of tactics, and accept their unsavory working conditions, because they think that's their only option to continue providing for themselves and their dependents. Strippers are often very gullible subservients to their bosses, in the most intimate of ways.

There are all kinds of worker rights obstacles in the strip club industry that aren't always as prevalent in other industries, so union busting and misclassification are a lot easier for business owners to get away with.

I'd really appreciate it if my coworkers of past, present and future would stop worrying that their club is going to close down because of me. I'd really like the threats and harassment to stop. The people who tell you those lies are taking advantage of your naive ignorance to union busting. They want to align me with right wingers or radical feminists who try to shut down clubs, and use this as a red herring to the issues of stripper labor rights.

Entitlement

I receive regular harassment, death threats and assaults from other women who are scabs or scab sympathizers-- the kinds of people who are uneducated about the beautiful history of labor struggles. One word that these ignorant scabs and scab sympathizers use when describing me is "entitled." If I leverage independent contractor perks, these ignorant people will call me entitled. If I suggest that a workplace is misclassifying, and perhaps a union with recognized employee status should be respected, I am also called entitled. These kinds of people expect me to complacently go along with being misclassified. These kinds of people are usually other women in the industry.

I want other dancers to understand what you are entitled to under each classification. I don't want you to ever let a scab or a scab sympathizer make you feel bad for being entitled to your rights. Some of the best people in history succeeded because they knew their worth, but who were called "entitled" by other people who did not care about worth.

If you are truly an independent contractor, you are entitled to leave or enter your workplace whenever you wish. You are entitled to not be infantilized by your business partner, which is the club, by having them keep your money all night. You are entitled to treat your services like a business, set your own prices, and decide how to perform those services within the confines of the law. You are entitled to wear whatever you want. You are entitled to so much freedom if you are an independent contractor, freedom that will help you run your life like a personal business. You are entitled to tell the club owner what misclassification is, without experiencing negativity. You are entitled to exercise every factor on the Economic Realities Test that defines what a contractor or lease holder is. You are entitled to so much, and worth so much.

If you are a misclassified employee, you are entitled to a lot too. You are entitled to Title VII protections. You are entitled to form a labor union. You are entitled to a living wage. If you work full time, you are entitled to many benefits that current laws deny part time employees. You are entitled to stand up for yourself if your rights are violated. If you are misclassified, you are entitled to your back wages and other stolen fees. The checks that you will receive is money that is yours, money that you are 100% entitled to. Any woman to say you are greedy because you want your money is a really sad person who should not be influencing other women in any way.

You are entitled to all of these wonderful things, because there were entitled people of the past who fought for all of us. Entitled people like Jimmy Hoffa, Mother Jones, Eugene Debs, Samuel Gompers, Joe Hill, Frances Perkins, Timothy Healy, William B. Fitzgerald, Timothy Murphy, Michael J. Quill, just to name a few. In their day, they too experienced threats and criticism for being "entitled." How dare one tell a business how to operate? How dare one not just leave and go someplace else? How entitled.

For so long, strip clubs have felt like the entitled ones. They have a workforce that isn't always respected in society, a workforce that has been laughed at when bringing labor issues to agencies like the EEOC or NLRB. They have a workforce that so-called feminists often scorn, or tell them to just quit their jobs if they hate it so much. They have a workforce that is left out of labor rights, because the stigma that being a stripper carries is not acceptable. Because of this stigma, society has pushed dancers into the shadows. Entitled strip clubs have felt comfortable calling dancers contractors, but controlling them like employees. Entitled clubs have felt comfortable firing dancers who stand up for their rights, be them contractor or employee rights. For so long, women have accepted lower wages in the regular workforce, and told to feel thankful for bread crumbs. For so long, strip clubs have felt entitled to break labor laws. It has happened for so long, that to be a woman with the audacity to shamelessly stand up for those rights will result in threats, violence, and being called "entitled." People have lived so long with an accepted reality that favors entitled strip clubs, over dancer rights.

I'm entitled to what I have and so much more. I'm going to keep being entitled, and I know that other modern labor advocates will also continue to be entitled by fighting for correct worker classification, a higher minimum wage, shorter work weeks, benefits for part time workers, protections for contractors and so-called "lease holders," and a more strict way of protecting those who stand up for themselves. Yeah, you're goddamn right I'm entitled.

Full Nudity in Nebraska

The right to get fully nude in the adult entertainment workplace, without cited for prostitution, harassed or intimidated, is in jeopardy in the state of Nebraska right now. This is an area of law that labor activists and club owners are able to agree on.

I suggest that club owners in Nebraska look into the state of Oregon's nudity ruling, which allows dancers to be fully nude in clubs that serve liquor. It is a freedom of expression and human rights issue.

While I have many reasons to hate Larry Flynt, one issue that the Mohney and Flynt families and I agree on is that abolitionists who try to control nudity are causing harm to workers who choose to be nude.

Political figure Theresa Thibodeau, of Nebraska, is harming consensual workers when she makes false statements about liquor and nudity. If she really cared about the lives of strippers, she would be focusing her energy on misclassified employees and unions. Instead, she has an odd obsession with nudity that is not helping anybody. Her actions say more about her own psychological issues than those of other people. Please contact her and let her know that she should shift her focus from regulating nudity to misclassification and worker rights:

Phone: (402) 471-2714
Email: tthibodeau@leg.ne.gov