Strippers are workers — and we're organizing for workers' rights

Guest post by Shira Cole, dancer & organizer with Working WA’s Strippers Are Workers campaign

Today is International Workers’ Day — and as dancers, we’re celebrating by releasing our open letter calling for worker-led policies in our industry.

Stripping is a job. And strip clubs are the only legal platform where women can charge men for what they are expected to do for free just about anywhere else.

In states with less restrictive regulations, dancers — largely women, especially women of color, and nonbinary people — can make significantly more money than they would in other industries. This job has been a pathway for many of us out of single parenthood, out of homelessness, out of abusive relationships, and into financial independence.

But we’re also protected by almost 0 labor regulations like other workers — that is, except the safety bill dancers with SAW won for ourselves in 2019.

That means there’s no protection against monopolistic clubs that charge us $200 a night in house fees just to be allowed to work — and we can go home owing the club money if business is slow.

And here in WA, puritanical regulations like the alcohol ban & municipal ordinances regulating our conduct have led to a strain on our income — and our safety. There are risks and problems in our industry, but criminalizing us has made all of our problems worse. For example, I can’t even tell my customers what my personal boundaries are during a dance because I’m implicating myself criminally by telling him what he can do. For fear he may be an undercover cop, I just wait until he does something I don’t allow to tell him “no.”

Restrictions on our industry are rooted in the stigma against sex work.

They’re enforced arbitrarily, and virtually impossible to follow, so the threat of being cited can always be held over us. For dancers of color, the issue is magnified by the threat of discriminatory policing & racist enforcement of policies by the clubs themselves.

And restrictions on zoning & the ban on alcohol in clubs have given rise to a monopoly that owns the vast majority of clubs in our state, by deterring new clubs from opening up — making it harder for us to exercise our rights at work for fear of being blacklisted by Deja Vu.

For many of us, stripping can be a salvation.

For many women, dancing offers a sense of empowerment. For single parents, it’s one of the few entry-level jobs that can cover the cost of childcare and offers a flexible schedule. For workers with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mental health issues, it offers the ability to take time off as needed. Dancing is not the solution to these problems, but it is a solution.

Stripping enabled me to buy my own home by myself, and leave relationships before they got abusive. This job is empowering, and we need laws led by strippers, for strippers, to give us agency and autonomy in our work. We’ve been suffering too long from layers of oppressive, sexist, puritanical, unnecessary laws and racist systems, and we’ve had enough.

What do we want? Rights, not rescue. Labor protections, not monopoly protections.

Why should you support strippers’ rights? Because strippers’ rights are workers’ rights.

This May Day, join us in making huge changes by workers, for workers, by signing on to our open letter & sharing it to help make sure our voices are heard.