Judge Says Exotic Dancers Deserve to Be Paid Minimum Wage

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
What do our resident FINANCIAL & labor "experts" say?

I'm willing to pay them minimum wage compared to the hourly rates they charge now when broken down by dances.

Minimum wage on top of the money we already get? I'm for it!

Careful what you ask for. From independent to controlled by the government and the club. Nothing's free.

This is a singular case. From what I understand, the level of control over the dancers was so excessive that the court ruled they were actually "employees". IC's are just that: independent, and the club cannot enforce the same level of rules as they can on an employee.

There may be other clubs that get sued as a result of this case, but I'm not expecting dancers to be getting paid a minimum wage anytime soon.

I tried to get back into RICK yesterday with $12.00 for 4000 but never got filed. Gonna put in the same bid for 2000 today - hopefully this "bad news" gives me a fill today.

There is that word again "Ex" dancers. It was Ok when they were working but now that they flipping burgers, they want a chunk of change.

I got impatient - bought the 2000 shares at $12.10.

Maybe it will get to where one has to buy a ticket and present it to the dancer. No tips!

That is quite optimistic of you Dougster. I've been trying to short the stock ever since it peaked $12, but my broker hasn't been able to locate a counter-party willing to lend the shares.

I guess we'll see who is right. The shares are meeting a lot of price resistance today despite the unreal trading volumes. Time for the back-end of this roller coaster ride I suspect. ;)

I actually hope we do get a short term dip and it won't surprise me. So I only went with half the position I wanted. If it gets down to $10.50 - $11.50 I'll see about adding the other half - or bailing depending on the situation at the time.

My broker doesn't allow after AH trading in this stock, but I'll check tomorrow to see if they allow shorting and let y'all know - for those who think there is a good short opportunity here.

Heh, I wonder how this will affect the dancers. Will go to Ricks one day and check it out for myself.

The SC economy has been shit for several years now. Adding this kind of stuff to the mix is just another nail in the coffin IMO.

I doubt I'd want a dance from a dancer who cared that much if she got paid minimum wage. What would really be good is if this would block clubs from charging (often ridiculous) house fees (even on bad nights) and more fines than a bank. The clubs that shake down their dancers this way are normally also the ones who are more inflexible with the dancers than most companies are with their employees. Hopefully this will put an end to that crap.

Wow

My girl could fuck up a free lunch.

This is supported by the man (Bloomberg) who has more money than just about anyone else and got it by ripping off small investors. Now he plays at being some high and mighty moralist. Banning salt and soda in NYC, forming for a mayor's committee of mayors against the bill of rights. He is all for bigger government and subjugating US citizens as long as his power and fortunes are increased. He is a modern day Napoleon manipulating the system (accept Napoleon was taller). His strategy is just the same a Obama's "give the ignorant a couple of small perks then take every thing else away" they then stand there and say "look I helped you get this (meaningless perk) now you are my indentured slave" . All politicians are egotistical megalomaniacs who only can get it up when they are crushing people.

Well said, TiredTraveller.

Yes, well said Tiredtraveller. So many democrats don't even realize they are on a plantation!

There was one comment that really caught my interest on this article:

"Eric Tx13 hours ago

If they get paid to be there, no one should be tipping them, they should provide the dances for free, as they are being paid as an "employee" and thier job is to dance. they now must declare tips to be income, now the IRS needs to get involved for they are not reporting thier income, lets see how quick they would drop this suit...."

So far it's just a summary judgment, which is why I'm not to concerned, although the stock may react violently. (Probably will.)

I am not sure what the correct analogy is here. Yes, by dancing on stage they do allow the club to sell overpriced beer and collect admission fees, so they probably do deserve a wage for that. But how much of their job is doing stage shows? Maybe adds up to an hour a night tops if there is a decent volume of girls?

The rest of the time all the work they do is voluntary. They do not have to give lap dances to any customer they don't want to (as I'm sure losers like txtittyfan has first hand experience with). Heck, they can even hang out in the dressing room all night as long as they don't miss their stage shows.

So the current practice seems close to fair for me. They are mostly paying to rent property to conduct their business on, and from that some of the cost is deducted due to the service they provide of doing stage dances to allow RICK to sell overpriced beers and collect admission fees.

I know Rick's in Seattle (not associated with Rick's Cabaret the corporation) allowed dancers the option of not performing on stage, but then they had to pay higher rent.

Only thing, I'm thinking is that maybe dances should be entitled to some minimum guaranteed compensation for the time they do spend on stage each night. Should that just be the time they spend on stage or should it also include standby time? Hard to argue fully for the later if what they do in the standby time is up to them and they have no obligations, but could decide to make potentially substantial money doing lap dances.

There's a club in Richmond that pays their dancers "waitress wages" (like $2.50/hr on top of their tips and is offering them healthcare packages) and the dancers at that club are pretty stoked on it. Happy dancers mean happy customers.

I think that the strip club industry could benefit from a re shaping in regards to the way that dancers are treated. Realistically, I don't think that there would be as many incidences of dancers ripping off customers if they felt that they were being compensated fairly for their time. I understand that there's a "market rate" for BBFS, but maybe the dancers that provide would perform more enthusiastically if they had comprehensive health coverage to rely on should anything go awry as a result of the service they had rendered.

Truthfully, I'm surprised that more girls aren't just telling customers "yeah, I'll fuck you in VIP", getting the money and then not delivering.

The system strip clubs are operating on now is kind of like a Möbius strip of everyone involved getting ripped off.

This is the trend in case law all across America. Whether it will end up with a favorable result for the dancers is ambiguous at best. The clubs will find ways to get paid.

duo: "Truthfully, I'm surprised that more girls aren't just telling customers 'yeah, I'll fuck you in VIP', getting the money and then not delivering."

Why does this surprise you? Names of ROBs get posted on the internet so that could cut into future business. Also she can only run that scam on a guy once and collect $200, whereas if she delivers she may collect $2000, $4000, more over time. Finally, what if she rips off a psycho customer. I'm pretty they don't do it more because the risk/reward just doesn't add up.

^ Yeah, but more often than not they're fake names that can be changed at will and if a guy is an extras guy chances are he's only going to be seeking out an extras girl (so really, how much can she actually make over a long term). There are a fair amount of ROBs posted about on this site and I'm just surprised there aren't more for many, many reasons. Psycho customers aren't one of them, they're pretty easily dealt with.

Möbius Strip sounds like a cool name for a club.

Hourly minimum wages in jurisdictions where I operate:

British Columbia - $10.25

Alberta - $9.95

Saskatchewan - $10.00

Nunavut - $11.00

North West Territories - $10.00

Guess how many of my employees and employees of contractors are paid minimum wage?

@SlickSpic - Yeah but all the dancers there are one dimensional!

This could force a lot of dancers past their prime into a career change.

So if you happen to work in Rick's Cabaret NY, don't bother getting excited. Their pretty much excluded from this ruling according to them since "they changed their independant contracteter practices some time ago"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101024767