Addressing Alex Press's Twitter Comments

People with a lot of press and public experience will usually tell you to not read the comments, but I do read the comments on social media related to this site and lawsuits. Unfortunately I don’t know how to update and fix my own Disqus comments on this site, so the whole set up is terribly outdated. Occasionally I meander around looking at comments about the suits on other social media platforms where people have posted about them. Generally the comments about the lawsuits on other social media platforms are good. Soldiers of Pole (now Strippers United) posted about the Centerfold win on instagram last year and I got hundreds of positive and encouraging sentiments that I was unaware of until a year later.

Alex Press interviewed me for Jacobin in 2020 and then tweeted about the article. I didn’t read the tweet or comments until a year later, this past Summer. A few trolls, including Reese Piper, replied to the tweet with their concerns. Some of their concerns are things that come up from time to time when issues of stripper labor rights are discussed. Reese Piper also didn’t mention in her Jacobin trolling comments that she and I haven’t gotten along for years and are blocked on social media. She’s an SJW ex-stripper who danced for a short period of time, is of an elite East Coast background, and generally doesn’t give a shit about strippers standing up for their labor rights that people fought and died for. A few other random commenters didn’t have actual identities, and for all I know, could’ve been strip club owners in disguise. Below I will post the comments, followed by my reactions.

Reese Piper: “I want to fight for the right to unionize but it's possible that fighting against misclassification could make the industry inaccessible to undocumented workers and create a bigger class divide between indoor/outdoor sex workers”

My Response: Most strippers are “documented” and deserve to enjoy their basic labor rights that people fought and died for, such as title VII, a basic living wage, benefits, the right to unionize, and more. They should not be punished legally or financially because a small number of dancers are undocumented. That is a disgusting fucking sentiment, and one that large corporations and exploitative employers would love to support, because it makes it easier for them to harm their workers. Reese does not come from a union background of any persuasion, and only became a stripper briefly for stupid fake feminist liberation empowerment reasons, and to pay off some of her Ivy league bills. She already knew I hated her when she commented on my article. She doesn’t elaborate on the “class divide” comment at the end, or how that would be a problem for strippers to have a union in relative to “outdoor sex workers.” Just because someone is “undocumented” doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from worker rights related matters. The EEOC takes complaints from undocumented workers all the time and many government institutions still help them. Hima B’s Tits and Sass interview addresses this argument more succinctly, and Hima is also an immigrant. Reese Piper desperately wants fame and relevance, and posted a link to her own anti-union article in her trolly comments.

Broke Stripper: Brandi Campbell is completely alone in her "activism," going from club to club with the sole intention of suing them, leaving the rest of us to suffer from the consequences of these lawsuits. Please amend your article to include this

My Response: I don’t go from club to club with the sole intention of suing them. I danced for many years prior to suing clubs. I sue clubs that violate my labor rights, and unfortunately most clubs do that. Clubs do not suffer great consequences because of one person suing them, unfortunately. They suffer slaps on the wrists most of the time. A common union busting and anti-worker tactic for businesses is to pretend to be a victim, get dumb scabs to feel sorry for them, get dumb scabs to fall in line, and get dumb scabs to villainize anyone trying to stand up for worker rights. I am not alone with my lawsuits. Some of them are class actions with anonymous others in the class. With the individual lawsuits, it is very isolating, but one can find a lot of support nationwide, online, through organizations like Strippers United.

Broke Stripper: These lawsuits hurt all of us, but especially the most vulnerable- undocumented, disabled, queer & poor sex workers, SWers of color, and SWers who aren't able to find a new club after she destroys ours (such as those of us whose bodies deviate from the "Barbie" ideal).

My Response: This scab troll may or may not be a real person. The lawsuits and any labor organizing strategy always helps workers. The businesses brainwash as many dancers as possible to think otherwise, just like any company in history has done in any number of industries when workers rise up. Worker rights help undocumented, disabled, and otherwise marginalized workers— through title VII protections, a union protecting them, benefits, and more. None of my lawsuits have ever “destroyed” a club. All claims the clubs have made to the contrary are only propaganda.

Tay Darling: Requiring clubs to classify dancers are employees actually hurt dancers which is why this isn’t a thing a lot of dancers are pushing for. If you want an example of this look at California clubs. She’s basically ruining the dancing industry from state to state.

My Response: Clubs want dancers to believe that standing up for their labor rights and unionizing will hurt them, and unfortunately most dancers are dumb enough to believe these lies. AB5 in California has caused a lot of clubs to react negatively and retaliate in any way possible, exploiting dancers even further when they don’t need to. The AB5 law needs to be more detailed and fixed, and it will in time, but the answer is not to continue misclassifying.

Tay Darling: She’s acting like she’s doing some great act in the name of justice when all she’s doing is causing us to make less money. If clubs pay a minimum wage & give us all the benefits then they need to take more money away from the dancers. In sf dancers sell a 500$ room & walk w 50$

My Response: All of the negative things that clubs are doing to dancers as a retaliation to AB5 could be stopped if the clubs wanted to. They could treat their dancers properly, but choose not to because they’re sick and sadistic and want to punish everybody for AB5.

Eliza: The federal laws are set up by the patriarchy to make us sue the clubs so they’ll get shut down and we all lose our jobs. Religious groups DONT WANT US TO EXIST AT ALL. Go ahead and sue and you’ll make us all lose our jobs and do exactly what the patriarchy wants. I suspect the "anti-trafficking" organizations(which are really anti-sex-work organizations), are funding and encouraging these lawsuits so we'll all lose our jobs or get paid 15$ an hour so we'll all quit.

My Response: Sadly a lot of dancers who find out about my lawsuits while working with them do think that I am some kind of religious person trying to shut the clubs down. It sounds fucking insane, but this isn’t uncommon. It has resulted in death threats, violence toward me, and destruction of my belongings. It fucks with my money when it happens, all hell breaks loose, and always reminds me of how dumb people are.

Broke Stripper: Discussed this with some friends who worked with her and witnessed first hand the devastating effects her actions had on their place of work. They informed me that she doxxed everyone who got in her way. She knows what she is doing. This is violence. Please amend your article.

My Response: Please provide more information. Clubs exploit workers to an extreme degree and blame people standing up for their rights. This is a classic divide and conquer tactic used for centuries against striking workers. I doxx scabs, not humans. There’s nothing wrong with that. Also, doxxing is not violence. Teamsters breaking the arms of scab drivers so they couldn’t drive— that’s a pretty cool form of violence. An example of violence in my instance would be breaking the legs of scab dancers, but I don’t do that. I simply doxx.

Vincent: Making strippers employees can & has made the job unaccessible to disabled or untraditional dancers. It also deeply cuts into dancers' income, dancers get fucked over by their clubs even more than ever. California has proven that the majority of dancers don't support her views.

My Response: Making clubs recognize the basic labor rights of their workers would give them Title VII protections and the ability to more easily report violations to the EEOC, such as issues related to disability, gender, race, or sex. Clubs steal money from California dancers after AB5 for retaliation purposes because they want a carve-out and it is part of their long-term strategy to destroy AB5 and worker’s rights in general. Don’t believe Vincent’s lies.

Privilege Acknowledgement

Every so often, an SJW feels the need to remind me that I have to be very privileged in order to be able to sue clubs, move around, and keep getting new jobs. She— it’s usually a she— will likely explain that not everybody could do that. I totally understand how if someone has children and must stay in one geographic place, it would be difficult to sue one’s workplace and repeatedly get a new job some place else. If someone has a disability, or geographic obligations to one location, just suing their exploitative workplace and moving some place else isn’t a reasonable way to live. I usually feel very thankful that I am not tied to one geographic location, and thankful I am able to relocate after a lawsuit starts or I get fired. I am conventionally beautiful enough to get hired most places I audition, although every once in a while I get rejected. That being said, the types of people who vocalize their desire for me to “check my privilege” are also able-bodied, untethered, fit enough mainstream beauty standards, and they only refrain from suing strip clubs because they are cowardly, lazy, and don’t care enough about holding exploitative workplaces accountable. That’s all. It has nothing to do with their lack of privilege in relative to my privilege. Suing clubs can be somewhat risky and dangerous to engage in the types of conflicts that arise when they are held accountable, and it’s annoying to have to relocate every few months. Sometimes I am crippled by depression. Most SJWs are just really disingenuous though. They prefer to find people who achieve things, and remind them of their privilege in a weaponizing manner, in order to shut down any attempts at a revolution and/or reform. They are often turds with casual drug habits as well, who have priorities unrelated to the values they preach about on social media.

Did Edward Salfelder's Wife Kill Herself?

An unreliable source informed me today that Edward Salfelder’s wife killed herself. Edward Salfelder is the diabolically evil owner of Silver Bullet in Urbana, Illinois. I am suing him for a few different things. I met his wife many times while working there and took her as a demure, docile subject of Edward’s fascistic, controlling nature. I cannot find her obituary. I need better intel on this. Is it true? Please email if if you know anything, and thank you kindly.

Let's Retire This SJW Term.

I’m not going to be using the term “sex worker” any more. I know I’ve used it in a lot of previous posts, but it’s always creeped me out bothered me in a variety of ways. It reminds me too much of an Orwellian Newspeak SJW term they like to invent, and we can’t have that here any more.

ESLERP members suggested we use “erotic service provider.” I like the term “adult entertainer,” if not specifically referring to dancers or strippers. Sex Worker took hold in the media for some reason, and is now so omnipresent in a ShitLib way that people like me use it for convenience and commonality.

Many strippers are bothered by using it, because sex isn’t supposed to be part of our job. It is inaccurate— no sex takes place in strip clubs most of the time. It is legally liable— one could potentially be subject to prosecution if accused of illegal acts. Erotic Service Provider or Adult Entertainer is a lot more vague legally, and can also be used as the solidarity “umbrella term” function that Sex Worker is often used for to encompass different kinds of adult entertainers like strippers, webcam performers, etc.

Mankato Updates

— I found this obituary about someone named Armella Willaert. Apparently Jake Willaert is related to Brody Christensen. That was a surprise, although in a town as small as Mankato, not surprising. There were times they were simultaneously hanging out at Mettler's, but I never saw them speak to or acknowledge one another.

— Gail's full name is Abigail Jensen, according to an anonymous source.

— A different anonymous source contacted me the other day, to inform me that Mettler’s regular Scott Harkema has been telling people that he was “acquitted” of charges, telling people I called the cops on myself, and telling people I was committed to a “psych ward.” None of that is true whatsoever. Scott was never “charged” with anything related to his behavior in my workplace, so there would be no related acquittal. To reiterate, I sued Mettler's for misclassification and sexual harassment. Scott's behavior as a customer was a part of my complaints. Mettler's paid me thousands of dollars to settle, so I wouldn't continue suing them. I proceeded to live my life outside of Minnesota, no cops or psyche wards at all. Often times when abusive pieces of shit get called out by me, they attack my mental health and engage in slanderous notions, in order to discredit.

— I've also been informed by an anonymous source that Scott Harkema is regularly shunned and threatened with physical violence by various motorcycle clubs in and around Minnesota.

Anti-BDS Laws

I’ve only just learned what “anti-BDS” laws are within this past calendar year. While these laws suppressing free speech and the right to boycott are very significant historical changes to our rights that have been going on for several years now, they rarely make the news. The media doesn’t talk a lot about them for some reason. These laws make it difficult to boycott or criticize Israel in the states where they are passed, and in some states, restrict a worker’s ability to receive their pension if their company doesn’t support Israel. That is fucking gross. I just wanted to state here on StripperLaborRights.com that this site 100% does not support Israel, and will support any boycott, lawsuit, or worker rights related matter however possible.

Strip Club Shooters

I never really thought the Shooters at strip clubs were a specific labor issue with regards to health and safety, until another activist started describing them to me as such. Strip clubs Shooters do happen from time to time, but I just gloss over them with cognitive dissonance and the awareness that Shooters are everywhere across America, no matter what the workplace is. But, there are certain activists who are more focused on preventing strip club Shooters.

Personally I believe that banning all rap and hip hop music in clubs would significantly reduce the likelihood of a Shooter coming to my workplace, but that’s an unpopular naughty opinion that upsets the Left.

Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club in Vegas, to their credit— though I still sued them for misclassification, illegal termination, and sexual harassment— would pat down patrons and wave a metal detector wand over them before letting them through the doors. I specifically remember Jason Mohney angrily threatening to fire a bouncer for neglecting to wave the wand properly over the patron’s entire body, and my feeling of relief that he was personally taking the time to ensure our safety. It is very rare for strip clubs to do that though, unfortunately. Most of the time, no pat downs, metal detecting, or any other precaution to check for firearms is taken. Sometimes, the Shooters open fire in strip club parking lots.

I thought it might be a good time to start tracking these types of Shooters in a casual list, kind of like my list of strip club lawsuits I post every so often. Here’s an incomplete first list of recent Shooters I found when casually googling:

Palm Beach County Strip Club Shooting

Shooting Outside of Sioux City Strip Club

Wisconsin Strip Club Shooting

Harvey, Illinois Strip Club Shooting

Washington Park, Illinois Strip Club Shooting

Philly Strip Club Shooting

Hallandale, Florida Strip Club Shooting

Knoxville Strip Club Shooting

Detroit Strip Club Shooting

Joel Wheelock Update

I moved all of the “Joel Wheelock Watch” stuff to a nondescript tumblr. The link is in the Resources tab at the top. I don’t regularly update it because I prefer not to think about Joel, not because he stopped being a horrible person. Within the past year or so, he got dumped by his fiance Janika, who is much younger than he is. He proceeded to post a misogynist rant on his facebook related to the break up. He is currently trying to get fans by posting dumb youtube skits and videos, behaving like a hip cool middle aged bachelor type of a guy with a sense of humor. The videos are mostly stupid, and his fan base are primarily his male coworkers.

Andrea Grove versus Club Omaha

Andrea Grove started a class action against Club Omaha a while ago. I found an article that said it might’ve settled, but am not sure. Myself and some other activists around the country are having a difficult time finding Andrea to get the info. Andrea had asked me to do a post about her finding plaintiffs for the class, while I was doing the Teazers series. Everyone wishes Andrea the best with her class action.

Wage Theft as Grand Theft

A common complaint by those wishing to make a difference, after a strip club gets sued, is that not much changed. It is still in the club’s best economic interest to continue misclassifying, financially exploiting, and violating the labor rights of dancers. Even with all of the nice large settlements that clubs have to pay, even when they sometimes go to trial and lose, they’ll still save more money in the long run if they continue business as usual. Employer taxes, title VII concerns, and paying a living wage to all employees are just some of the expenses they want to avoid. All of those things are much more expensive than dealing with the lawsuits. The lawsuits and NLRB claims are basically a slap on the wrist, economically speaking, for clubs.

This problem reaches far beyond strip clubs, of course. It’s why so many businesses continue to misclassify even though they know they’re liable. Even with all of the press articles and media attention, they still choose the misclassifying option. From a purely business perspective where short-term financial gain is the bottom line, rather than valuing people’s lives, this makes mathematical sense.

Gavin Newsom and Lorena Gonzalez of California understood the financial incentives businesses have to misclassify when they signed Assembly Bill 1003 into law this past September. AB 1003 criminalizes wage theft as Grand Theft, rather than just addressing it as a civil manner. That means instead of just having to pay a sum of money to make the problems go away when clubs or other misclassifying businesses get sued, the employer may face criminal charges and go to prison for misclassifying their employees, stealing large amounts of money from them. They’ll also still have to pay a large sum of money to the exploited workers. The hope is that this bill will motivate more employers to treat their employees properly. Methinks this bill distills a more accurate description of what wage theft actually is. Well done.

Biometric Data Rights

This past Summer, I received a check for almost $400 in the mail. It was a small sweet surprise. I forgot that I had signed up for a class action represented by Kusinski earlier this year, holding ADP accountable. In 2019, I welded at a Chicagoland manufacturing plant that made me give my fingerprint to clock in and out. Illinois has some of the best biometric data protection laws in the country, and Kusinski’s firm helped to enforce those laws with their class action. Unfortunately, workplaces continue to violate their employee’s biometric data rights. Strip clubs sometimes make misclassified dancers give their fingerprints, in order to clock in and out. Workplaces in a variety of different industries, at an ever increasing pace, are stealing their worker’s biometric data and using robots to manage their workforce. This includes exploiting fingerprints, gait, eye patterns, video footage, behavioral algorithms, and more. The good thing is that together, workers can come together to protect their biometric data through litigation and other means. If you are interested in discussing biometric data protection with me, need a good lawyer referral, or to otherwise create worker solidarity in this developing and robust area of law, please contact me through the tab at the top.

Centerfold Update

Centerfold in Columbus closed down, after Brenda Willis Bonzo filed for bankruptcy. She waited until the very last minute to tell all of the workers at Centerfold, instead of telling them as soon as possible so they’d be able to find new jobs in time. She also made sure to wait until the NLRB’s decision was upheld to send everything out, in order to fit the narrative that my actions are what closed down the club. My actions were not what caused the club to close down. In fact, Brenda is a terrible business woman who has run multiple places into the ground. She inherited the club after I was fired, because the owner Fred died. Sources from inside the club also informed me that she and Greg Flaig blamed the dancers for the club’s closure, telling them in group meetings that they needed to be advertising more and attracting more patrons. Sources familiar with Brenda’s whereabouts have informed me that she moved to Florida. Brenda is from a wealthy background in Texas and is rumored to have a large trust fund. I still haven’t been paid anything from the Centerfold matter, and may never receive anything. Legal proceedings to determine payment will start in December and continue into 2022. I will provide more detailed information on everything Centerfold-related after it is all over, as mentioned in previous posts. I intend to do a long Centerfold series, certainly.

Please contact me if you have any interesting information about Brenda Bonzo and/or Greg Flaig.

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar!

I’m giving away a gift during the month of December, to anybody who requests one. It is a one month subscription to Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar. Just email me and I’ll send it to you. This is not an advertisement, and I’m not getting paid by anyone to distribute such a gift— I just greatly appreciate their show and want to share my favorite news show with you. I’ve never seen a news program with better coverage of worker rights and a better way of saying “screw you” to mainstream media.

Boycotting Amazon

All of my recording devices that were used in secretly audio recording my bosses and managers were ordered from Amazon. Previously, I included a link to them in the Resources tab. I took that link off, as part of my desire to boycott Amazon. Jeff Bezos is a terrible person who I wish was dead, due to his mistreatment of Amazon workers. I suggest using a search engine like DuckDuckGo.com to research spy recorders, and ordering them directly from the spy recorder websites, rather than Amazon. If you have trouble doing that, please email me and I would be happy to help.

A Confession

In early 2014, a website appeared on the internet. It was called “George Gellis is Sorry.” It was written in the first person, as George Gellis, apologizing to all of the employees he managed at Chicago’s VIP’s strip club. It contained hilarious details about George’s failed personal life, history, and information most people weren’t privy to. It stayed up for maybe a month or so, along with a facebook profile pretending to be a very sorry George Gellis. During that month, VIP’s staff and management went berserk. The site got over one thousand hits within a very short period of time. A bartender was blamed and suspected of being behind it, or other members of the bartender’s large political family.

The George Gellis accounts were taken down from the internet against the author’s wishes. I know, because I was the author. Nobody ever confessed to being the author of “George Gellis is Sorry,” until now. I, Brandi Campbell, am the sole author and creator of the “George Gellis is Sorry” accounts. VIP’s in Chicago was extremely financially exploitative, and George Gellis was a bully manager who fired me. I had already been meeting with IWW-affiliated people and SWOP for several months before I was fired, to try to figure out how to hold VIP’s accountable. At that time in my life, I didn’t know how to go about suing VIP’s, or much about my labor rights. Someone from the IWW suggested that I make a site in the first person, a sorry person who is my manager, and advertise it for publicity purposes. He said it had been done against some corporation of the past and was a big hit. So, that’s what I did.

A dancer named Michelle Cron said to a bartender, while working at VIPs, that she briefly thought I might be responsible for the site, but that she didn’t think I was smart enough to do something like that, and that because the site was so well written, she didn’t think I was the author. The bartender who casually told me all the information about George Gellis’s background thought that I must have secretly audio recorded him, because I memorized every detail about George and published it. I never recorded that bartender talking to me, just memorized everything.

A sexual predator who was also manager of VIP’s, named Joseph Mankiewicz, eventually got fired by Vrydoliak, after my site empowered dancers to report him to upper management. It was awesome. However brief, the site was all very awesome and hilarious, sending ricochets for years to come. I consider it a proto StripperLaborRights.com

VIP’s was eventually bought by RCI and turned into a Rick’s, but still got sued by people who are not me. My time statute of limitations to sue them expired, but I was happy to hear about that lawsuit.

Previously, I was worried about getting sued for making “George Gellis is Sorry,” so I never admitted to being the author before. I was happy to hear everybody blamed the Raines family. But now, with StripperLaborRights.com and all of the stuff that I’ve put on here, I could care less if someone tries to sue me, because I know they’d never succeed in getting anything from me besides laughter. I wish I would’ve saved my entries from “George Gellis is Sorry,” but I didn’t. I can only remember one poem I wrote, and will share it now:

Georgie Porgie, Pumpkin Pie

Managed all the girls and made them cry

Greasy hair, in a tail

George’s love life will always fail

Songs as Interstate Commerce

In early 2020, I worked at a club in Central Illinois, called Silver Bullet. After several weeks, I was fired for engaging in protected concerted activity. I reported it to the NLRB and did a really uncomfortable affidavit with a piece of shit investigator named Grant Dodds. I requested to be switched to someone who wasn’t him, and also complained about his fucked up conduct, to which his boss didn’t really seem to care. I started getting hits on my website which I believe were from Grant Dodds, until I emailed him, telling to stop reading. That particular NLRB claim was not found to be meritorious, because the NLRB claimed that they couldn’t find evidence of “interstate commerce,” which is one of the necessities of proceeding with an NLRB claim. Sometimes they search for things like liquor sales, food, or other business transactions that cross state lines. It’s not very difficult to do for most clubs, and I believe this particular branch of the NLRB is just really shitty, careless, misogynist garbage— like Grant Dodds and his boss, Joanne Mages.

I proceeded to find local counsel associated with Shannon Riordan’s firm, and learnt that song downloads from the DJ are considered interstate commerce. I hope that anybody who is struggling to find evidence of interstate commerce remember that song downloads can fit the definition and remove that obstacle, so you can better proceed with holding your club accountable. The NLRB should have known that already, but Grant Dodds did mention that his branch of the NLRB run by Joanne Mages was incompetent.

The Expo

Apparently there is a “gentlemen’s club expo” in Las Vegas every year, put on for the people running strip clubs, misclassifying, and violating dancer labor rights. I didn’t learn about this until this past October. It has been going on for a number of years. Within minutes of navigating to the site, I saw photos of multiple managers who have participated in my terminations in multiple states. Of course it was both hilarious and sickening to see photos of them partying hardy together. A number of dumb bitches who work as dancers in a scabby way also attend, have contests of various kinds, and provide additional photographic entertainment for the website. There are panels and workshops at this expo, discussing legal rights and strip club issues. I very much wish I would have had a chance to attend while living in Vegas several years ago. If any of my readers have been to this expo or can contribute valuable information about it, please email me by clicking the contact tab at the top of this page. The next expo will be in the Summer of 2022.

Inflation and Dance Prices

I’ve addressed inflation in previous posts, but just wanted to touch on it again in light of the current economic climate. True contractors get to charge whatever they want for their services. Some lawyers would argue that even with pricing flexibility, dancers are still inherently employees because they are integral to the business operation. As misclassified employees with no union, clubs normally require the dancer to charge around $20 per song, give or take, depending on the club. Normally clubs take $5-$10 per song out of their set prices, give or take, depending on the club. Sometimes when clubs try to look more like they’re not misclassifying, they will allow a dancer to charge whatever she wants. That is rare though. Most dancers do not fight back to change the stagnant pricing. They just keep getting more poor as nationwide inflation occurs and they’re still charging the same amount of money for dances that was charged three decades ago. It is very pathetic.

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