Strippers Are Turning To Old-School Union Tactics To Fight For Fair Wages.
shadowcat
Atlanta suburb
Long article about California employee classification for strippers.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/strippers…
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/strippers…
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But the employee model itself has already doomed the clubs to failure in the long run, especially in a litigious state like CA. Things will be ok for a time, but eventually girls will start suing clubs for not keeping them safe from things like unwanted contact. Eventually the only way to manage this will be to prohibit contact LDs and put glass between customers and dancers, like the Lusty Lady did or what some French clubs do.
They think if the dancers ran the clubs then things would be awesome which IMO is mostly wishful thinking since unlikely most custies would enjoy a club ran the way most dancers feel it should be ran - business 101, it's about the customer, not you.
Dancers are defending themselves and are trying to gain legitimacy and respect for their profession. WHich is worth supporting.
As per usual, the men on here opposing dancers' rights do so out of fear that unionized, assertive dancers with actual rights won't be as prone to be so desperate so as to prostitute themselves, which would make men like Rick et al upset.
Right. And what I'm reporting is 1. consistent with what others, customers and strippers, are reporting, 2. consistent with the article (where Icey's fantasy state is not). To wit: exactly as the article says, the girls are far worse off by having been transitioned to employees. This is a statement of fact -- all you need to do is run the numbers to see it's true, and that's before you factor in that they are limited in hours, doing doubles, etc. So, having been hit hard by the transition to employees, they're trying to respond to those changes. Some are responding by looking at unionizing; others are responding by trying to get the employee ruling to not apply to them. The point is: if the effect of the employee transition was anything other than a disaster, they wouldn't be doing these things. As someone who wants the best for the girls, I'm sorry that the employee verdict has impacted them so badly; I prefer they make out better, regardless of political theory.
It's not surprising that, in response to "we told them that our political theory states that making them employees would make things better, but made things 100x worse", the new line is "now we're telling them that unionizing we definitely make things better. This time we'll definitely be right" Plain and simple, the girls are looking at unionizing because they got fucked but people who had good intentions but completely lacked understanding.
In addition, the kind of person who makes the following statements about women, should go around telling everyone else that they're misogynists:
"Its in your best interest to take control of her drug use from the start. Make sure she does the minimum to get fucked up."
"Never ask her to do shit. Tell her to do it."
"Its about control."
"Don’t be afraid to discipline her. Eventually you’ll have to. Be manipulative with her feelings."
"She’s not happy with herself and never satisfied, she’s always looking for a quick fix and fast satisfaction."
"The number one thing you need to do to fulfill her needs is to make her dependent on you for as much as possible. You basically have to manage her life. Its what these bitches crave"
"If she fucks with your main bitch keys your car gets violent with you, then slap the shit out of her. "
"Versions of this payment structure exist in clubs around the state. Ironically, it’s a product of what should be positive change in the industry. Thanks to a recent court ruling, exotic dancers in California are now recognized as employees, entitled to minimum wage and labor protections. But as a result, club owners are devising devious new ways to profit off their work."
As I have been confirming and you denying, the girls are worse off since the employee status ruling, and this effort to unionize is directly in reaction to that. In other words, the article confirms everything I've been saying, and directly contradicts everything you've been saying ... they got screwed so hard from the employee status, that they're trying to unionize (that's just some strippers -- others are trying to roll back the classification to employees entirely, which is likely the smarter move).
I thought Txtitty was dougster. How many accounts does he have? and why isn't he too busy spending his Bitcoin billions to post here?
He is definitely a twat.
CHANGE IN CALIF LAW:
The shift of dancers from independent contractors (ICs) to employees in California was caused by a Calif Supreme Court opinion, not a legislative act. Court opinion was issued in April 2018 and was not stripper specific. The IC versus employee test it established made it impossible for lots of types of workers (strippers included) to continue to be classified as ICs. Whether you agree or disagree with the court's opinion or are pro-labor or anti-labor is immaterial – it established a legal precedent and any employer not conforming would be taking a major risk. DV owns most all San Fran clubs. In October 2018 the DV clubs all switched over to the employee model and a girl could not get on the floor until the girl signed the employment contract. Why DV waited 6 months to do the switch is unknown to me. It had to have been a risk management decision. It's unlikely DV desired the switch because now they have to deal with payroll and withholding and lots of labor laws (rest breaks, meal breaks, etc.).
THE CHANGE SUCKS FOR DANCERS:
Here's what I know about the TL DV clubs (I don't frequent DV FN clubs because other than Centerfolds the girls are generally not good looking there):
-- I haven't seen the contract but I have seen girls' pay stubs.
--The girls get paid minimum wage for hours worked during shift. Club keeps some first amount of dance and room earnings per shift ($150 I think it is) and pays the minimum wage out of that amount.
--As ICs, girls used to keep 67% of what they made off rooms and club kept 33%. Clubs now taking a dramatically bigger % of the room fees than before. I don't know what the stripper/club % split was for dances under the IC regime but the girls say club is taking way more than before.
Here's what the girls say (and I mean multiple including CFs that stayed):
--They uniformly hate it. They want to be ICs again. No girl has told me they prefer the employee setup.
--They make dramatically less money.
THE CHANGE SUCKS FOR PLS:
The new employment regime sucks at the TL clubs and here's my first hand knowledge reasons:
--The tip hustle has increased dramatically as the girls seek to compensate for the income drop.
--There was a mass exodus of girls. 3 I could classify as CFs left immediately. About 2 dozen other girls I used to like watching on stage and occasionally get dances from are gone. The ones who've stayed are the ones seeing themselves as having no other options.
-- Penthouse is dead because of the exodus - I haven't been back since and don't intend to return. Gold Club is still busy – I suspect that's because it's always had the best looking girls and is close to the convention center hotel corridor and gets more PLs. Some girls transitioned from PH to GC and there's also some new talent but not as good as before due to the exodus. I don't know about Hustler because my recent visits there at off hours have not been good (low quality talent).
--In May, room rates increased 25%. Rooms rates were already high but now I'm done with rooms forever.
--The floor dance and VIP chair dance prices have increased but I'm not sure how much. I heard the floor dances increased from $20 to $40 per and the VIP chairs increased from 3/$100 to 3/$140. I'd appreciate someone confirming what the new dance pricing is. If it's by that amount then SCing in SF will for me be mostly drinking and watching and not touching. That is a crying shame.
1. Not all clubs have made the switch - yet. For those that have not, they are just a "white knight" legal firm away from being forced to through litigation.
2. For those that have switched, I have anecdotal reports from about 4 dancers at clubs that thier "take home" pay has dropped 30-60%.
3. Here's how one dancer told me the new pay scheme works at DV NH:
- She must work at least 4 days a week, and at least 6 hours per scheduled shift.
- She must bring in a minimum of $200 in net dance fees (the cub's cut) for each day worked. If she can't do this too often, she risks being fired (presumably because the club's "costs" to pay her minimum wage + "burden rate" [payroll taxes, back office, etc.] plus make a fair profit are about $200).
- Her take on per dance fees is much smaller now (club takes $12-15 on booth dances and $78 on half hour dances). This makes it easier to hit the $200/shift min, but leaves far less for her as earned tips.
- The Vu offers a 30 minute VIP dance session. The cost for this for DECADES was $150 everyday except Thursdays. Thursdays were "hundred dollar half" special day. The cost for half hours went up to $200 in November, 2018, but the Thursday special remains at $100 (I assume to be competitive to other Valley Clubs where half hour dances range from $200-350).
- With the half hour changes, dancers push very hard for half hour dances on any day except Thursday, as it's the fastest way to hit the $200 minimum. However, many (most?) dancers are extremely reluctant to do half hours on Thursdays as they make almost no money doing it ($122 vs $12 on Thurs).
- In my last 4 or 5 visits to DV NH, mostly on day shift, the average number of dancers on shift between 4 pm and 8 pm has declined from around 8 to 4-5. Often there are not enough dancers to get on stage for 10-15 minutes. As a result, the DJ seems to call stage maintenance two to three times an hour, rather than once an hour.
- The waitresses (who have always been "employees") appear to be much more flirty, especially on stage and as a result are now making pretty good tips. Note that DV does not allow a waitress to do lap dancers (exception is the new non-nude balloon dance) and they cannot switch roles from day to day.
- As of 6/1/19 DV NH no longer offers free non-alcoholic beverages. Your 1st drink is paid with your cover fee. Additional drinks are $5, $7, or (I think) $10.
My prediction for how the clubs with employee will ultimately modify thier business model to ensure thier continued survival:
1. The cover fee will evolve into an hourly club fee. PL will need to clock in when they arrive and will be asked to pay an hourly rate ($5, $10, ??) until they leave. They can either pre-pay or start a credit/debit card tab. The clubs will have to drop excessive ATM fees and will need to ensure card charges are billed in an innocuous name (i.e.: "DV Billing Corp").
2. Dance prices will increase and the customer will need to enter some type of token at the booth (ala a players card at a casino) along with the dancer. Tracking a PL's dance volume will enable the club to offer special treatment/deals to high dollar rollers and possibly rewards to dancers who dance for them. The PL "token" will not be tied to any personal info. The PL will need to remember his "code" from visit tp visit. Privacy still remains critical.
3. PL's will get a final check when ready to leave the club and can pay by card or cash, bitcoin, or other methods.
Bottom line: the clubs will need to make up for the additional costs of maintaining employees (vs IC's) AND the loss of top line revenue from losing best dancer talent in 2 ways:
- Increase money charged to customers (drinks, time, seating preferences, type of dance selected, etc.)
- Increase the number of customer in the club through advertising and offering of better/elite/VIP services.
The overall effect on PL's is that your total send may not change much, but more of that spend will go to the club. From that it's easy to predict that ITC extras will die and OTC will be much more available and preferred from a subset of dancers as a necessary risk to earn the same or better pay.
Yeah, as this rolls through, the experiences are the same everywhere in the state. Note that the article cites that this movement to form a union is being driven out of southern California -- don't get fooled by the bleating that the destructive impact on the girls is limited to SF. Everywhere this rolls out, the reports from PLs and the girls are the same. It's been horrible for the girls. Someone who endorses beating the girls, and controlling them through drugs and emotional abuse, could certainly applaud this change; anyone who cares about the women in this business, not so much.
-->"The overall effect on PL's is that your total send may not change much, but more of that spend will go to the club. From that it's easy to predict that ITC extras will die and OTC will be much more available and preferred from a subset of dancers as a necessary risk to earn the same or better pay."
PLs will see a more practical impact as 1. many of the girls switch to stripping in other states, or leaving the business entirely, 2. the shifts get progressively smaller, since it's no longer in the club's interest to have lots of girls on shift (at least according to SC manager thinking). Reduction in talent and lineup sizes, reduces the number of PLs, raises the girls hustle level given lower takehome and smaller crowds, etc. The girls and PLs are in common cause here, bad all around
Changing to employees, and the double down impact of employees unionizing (note that there is already a union in SF, I believe) while maintaining status quo otherwise, will lead to spiraling death to CA clubs as
- The best dancers flee and
- The # of customers coming to the club per day will drop and
- The TIME and money spent by each customer will reduce as well
So the club owners MUST rethink how they offer services and how the monetize them based on a much higher operating margin. Essentially with employees rather than IC's, the cub will need to spend maybe 30-50% more of each dollar they earn to cover higher costs. If top line revenue does not increase, or declines, they will chase cost-saving efforts into the ground.
——
Interestingly enough, Springfield MO clubs do the employee thing as well. I tried to apply to a club until I found out about that. I suppose I should have asked more questions on the phone rather than just asking for a time to audition, but I assumed that being an independent contractor was just simply standard.
But I guess it works out well enough for dancers. I went in as a customer to one of the clubs and asked about it, and the two dancers I spoke with seemed indifferent to the employee structure and didn’t consider it a good thing or bad thing. So there wouldn’t be any attempts to unionize from anyone there anytime soon.
But (assumed, not confirmed) I’m sure management doesn’t do quite the same money grab over there either. And it seems like the kind of place where $200-$300 shifts are likely the norm. (Which given Springfield COL, probably isn’t too terrible of a living)
So in short, an employee-like place is probably more viable and enjoyable in a large town/small city. And probably a positive for the local girls since that kind of environment discourages travellers and competition.
But in a state full of beautiful women and more ambition and pressure to pay bills? Ick.
Its also not a "money grab".... they just have to do everything by the book now. Some are just too stupid to get that paying a house fee each night and having it taken out of a wage and reflected on a pay stub leaves more money for her...and that it reflects the taxes she should have been filing anyways lmao
But given that the guys complaining about the structure are ones who look for hookers in clubs, well yeah.... there you have it.