Big win for dancers at strip clubs in Washington state
TODAY IN OLYMPIA AT 2:30 PM, Governor Inslee will sign our dancer safety & security bill, HB 1756, into law. Dancers will be there at the bill-signing ceremony in Olympia to mark the occasion and will be available for comment.
This bill-signing might very well mark a first in Washington state legislative history — the first law affecting people who work at strip clubs that was actually initiated by people who work at strip clubs. Dancers at strip clubs have organized with Working Washington to drive the development of this bill with sponsors Rep. Tina Orwall (D - Des Moines) and Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D - Seattle).
Who: Governor Inslee
What: Sign our stripper safety & security bill into law
When: Bill signing ceremony commences at 2:30. (List of bills for action here.)
Where: Governor's Conference Room, State Capitol, Olympia
Dancers are workers, and every worker deserves a safe, secure, and healthy workplace. HB 1756 will:
Create Know Your Rights trainings for all dancers at strip clubs
Ensure clubs provide panic buttons
Require clubs to maintain a customer ban list to bar entry of people who have been violent
Establish an advisory committee of dancers to work with L&I on implementation, and make further recommendations.
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Contact: Sage Wilson, Working Washington, sage@workingwa.org
Working Washington is the voice for workers in our state. Working Washington fast food strikers sparked the fight that won Seattle’s first-in-the-nation $15 minimum wage. Working Washington baristas and fast food workers led the successful campaign for secure scheduling in Seattle, and our members across the state helped drive forward Initiative 1433 to raise the minimum wage and provide paid sick days. We successfully drove Amazon to sever ties with the right-wing lobby group ALEC and improve conditions in their sweatshop warehouses, and got Starbucks to address inequities in their corporate parental leave policy. And we continue to make history by organizing for the landmark statewide paid family leave law in 2017, and winning the groundbreaking Seattle Domestic Workers Bill of Rights last summer. For more information, including our press kit, visit workingWA.org.