Comments on: Blast From the Past: The San Francisco Stripper Wars

By: Today in Absolutely Horrible: SC Stripper Shot At Strip Club Denied Worker’s Comp

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:01:07 +0000

[…] strippers at Tits and Sass have gone on record as being, in general, in favor of independent contractor status for strippers, because we like […]

By: Behind Portland’s Dancer-Run Awards Show, The Strippies | Tits and Sass

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:01:39 +0000

[…] of the industry. In a lot of ways, the dancers are little bit exploited. They’re not treated as fairly as they should be. And even beyond that, just in the general public, for a long time there’s been a stereotype of […]

By: A Protest of a Protest: SOS Oregon Takes on Casa Diablo | Tits and Sass

A Protest of a Protest: SOS Oregon Takes on Casa Diablo | Tits and Sass — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:07:39 +0000

[…] that it could be much worse—at least we don’t have the sky-high fees that come with Deja Vu monopolies experienced in other cities.) Ultimately, I believe that if the other fifty-something strip clubs in Portland have a right to […]

By: Kat

Kat — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 10:23:56 +0000

In reply to Irony Butterfly. I guess I should make the part where I say that I don't have all the answers in bold. I definitely don't think that this is the best of the possible worlds. I wasn't trying to sound defeatist so much as I was trying to say that we need to anticipate how clubs will work around outcomes of class action lawsuits before we proceed.

By: Irony Butterfly

Irony Butterfly — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:31:47 +0000

Oh no, I just read this.

I agree with the negative outcomes of many – okay, like almost all – cases. But I just can’t differ enough with the notion that it is “short sighted” to use the tools at your disposal to seek out better working conditions; if the tools aren’t getting the result you want, you need new tools, not just to suck it up. (Where would we be, I ask you, if steelworkers had just sucked it up in 1938? No very nice place, I suspect).

A factory union model is not likely to work for a strippers or prostitutes; we’re too transient and, frankly, unpredictable. But that model doesn’t work for actors, writers, musicians, or construction workers either. That is not the only model out there.

I tend to think the most obvious use of these kinds of lawsuits is as leverage to force a settlement for IC status on reasonable terms; settling for cash is the solution for women not going back to work. But without some kind of long stick you are, quite literally, at the mercy of club owners. I’m not quite ready to accept that is the best of the possible worlds.

By: Elle

Elle — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:30:19 +0000

That typed sign of “Rules with Fine’s” is just atrocious. And people think that strippers are stupid? Look at some of the owners….Anyway, that’s not the point.

Personally…. my own personal politics lead me to feel that I wouldn’t want to be part of a union, however I can definitely agree that in many capacities we are still not treated as independent contractors.

I think it comes down to us trying to select where we work, and taking the management into account as part of the bigger picture which will become our environment. Ugh.

By: DD

DD — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:29:15 +0000

While it may not have been good for strippers working clubs in SF, some Southbay clubs proactively changed their fee structure in an interesting way that may actually have benefited strippers. Like, since we were not employees we could leave the club between our stage sets (since that’s what our stage fee is actually a stage lease and thus we can’t legally be required to stay in the club between sets. Unfortunately, this may have resulted in a few dancers getting DUI’s on the job, but I digress). We also could charge whatever we wanted for dances and customers pay a dance fee into a lil vending machine that timed us, and then payed us separate. So, we never payed the club a cut of our dances, the customer did. That way the club had no responsibility in keeping track of our earnings or 1099’ing us.

By: RRBILL

RRBILL — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 22:27:05 +0000

In reply to Melissa Gira Grant. If Denver's own VCG Holdings aren't as big as Deja Vu, it isn't for lack of trying. Corporatism is ruining the strip club industry just like it did rock & roll. Very hard to find a free house for drinking and watching.

By: andi

andi — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 08:23:16 +0000

i worked in both the union club in SF and also a couple deja vu clubs. i hate deja vu, but i will say that maybe there are contracts about touching your thighs for a certain amount of time or whatever, but it’s not anything that anyone is held to. i don’t know why i wanted to point that out.

By: Melissa Gira Grant

Melissa Gira Grant — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:25:49 +0000

Biting my tongue, mostly, and not in a sexy way. But. I danced in San Francisco for three years, in that club — that union one — yeah. It’s next door is the Hustler Club. Which is a Deja Vu owned club. Actually, aside from the union club, the Mitchell Brothers, and maybe Market Street Cinema, Deja Vu owned the whole town. Their monopoly — complete with contracts that specified how long you could touch your thighs vs. your between-boob-area or whatever, and how many BPM’s your music could be (and the race of the person performing it) — it definitely made the union club seem like a leftover slice of paradise, some relic of 90’s do-me activism. Not that solidarity was to be had in A Real Union Club, either. But the thing that felt like the biggest obstacle to dancers having control over their workplaces in any legit way was the the corporate monopoly, not the contractor-vs.employee status issue. If Deja Vu owns the town, you can’t just head down the turnpike to another place when you get fined $100 or locked out for calling in sick. It’s worse than Walmart.