The evil are guilty, and create Law. The good are innocent, and create Justice. – Terry Pratchett
Religions and legal regimes insist that the way to make people better is by threatening them with unspeakable cruelty, but in fact this merely stunts individual moral development and very often creates criminals out of ordinary people. Furthermore, when laws pretend that ordinary behaviors are “criminal”, they force those activities into the shadows where the people who participate in them can be preyed upon by the truly evil or the merely unscrupulous. Take sex work, for example: criminalization ensures that those who victimize sex workers (such as bad clients, thieves, serial killers, corrupt or rapist cops, abusive pimps and sleazy businesspeople) can inflict harm with impunity, and though legalization regimes may afford some slight protection from actual violence (assuming the cops can be bothered to investigate crimes against sex workers, which they usually can’t), they throw the door wide open to official corruption and unethical business owners who are well-connected and/or good at gaming the system. And all too often, the laws themselves facilitate this by rewarding exploitative business practices and punishing fair ones.
Escort services are quasi-legal, and though strip clubs are fully legal they are marginalized and the VIP rooms are only quasi-legal. What I mean by that is, though these businesses are themselves wholly legal, they depend entirely upon activities which are themselves illegal. Escort services would make far less money if they could and did reliably prevent escorts from selling sex, and the same can be said for VIP room activities. In order to protect themselves from asinine “pandering” charges, these businesses must therefore hire girls as independent contractors; I had my lawyer draw up an agreement which every escort had to sign, stating not only that she was responsible for her own taxes and such, but also that she agreed not to have sex with clients. In other words, the ridiculous prostitution laws forced me to be party to a fraudulent contract every time I hired an escort, and forced my escorts to violate that contract every time they went on a call.
This is why virtually all sex workers are independent contractors; the liability created by prostitution laws in general and “pandering” or “avails” laws in particular is so great that no business can afford it. But while ethical business owners like me understand and accept the drawbacks to using only contractors, unethical owners (and there are many) want the advantages of the contractor relationship without the disadvantages. In other words, they want to call their girls “contractors” on paper, yet treat them like employees in fact, and without the expenses and liabilities inherent in the employer-employee relationship. This is very common among bad escort service owners, but it’s epidemic in strip clubs, and a recent lawsuit called attention to that fact:
A federal court has approved a…$13 million settlement in a nationwide class-action lawsuit initiated by women who worked as exotic dancers for the Spearmint Rhino adult nightclub in Oxnard [California]…Christeen Rivera and Tracy Dawn Trauth…claimed they were wrongly treated as independent contractors rather than employees entitled to benefits. They sought back wages, tips, attorney fees and damages. According to the suit, the women each earned an average of $500,000 a year in tips for lap and table dances. But the dancers alleged most of the money went to the club to cover “rent,” the disc jockey, stage fees, overhead costs and even penalties if they didn’t get enough men to purchase drinks during a shift. In addition to the financial hit…the clubs have agreed that within six months they will no longer treat dancers as independent contractors or lessees, but as employees, shareholders, partners or some type of owner. In California specifically, dancers will no longer be charged stage fees…Rivera and Trauth were eventually joined by 12 other Spearmint Rhino dancers who agreed to be named as class representatives in the lawsuit. Each of them will get an “incentive award” of $1,000 to $15,000 for the time they spent on the case and the personal and professional risk they took in allowing their names to be used. The rest of the dancers’ share of the $12.97 million settlement will be divvied up among an unknown number of dancers in six states who end up filing claims…
In every country where sex workers have won rights, the struggle was framed and presented as a labor issue (hence the slogan “sex work is work”); only in the United States is the emphasis consistently placed on the “sex” rather than the “work”. But if lawsuits like this one keep succeeding that may change, not just for “legal” sex workers but eventually for “illegal” ones as well. Once sex work is finally recognized as legitimate labor, those who work for larger businesses (strip clubs, brothels, escort services, etc) will be protected by labor laws just as other workers are, businesses will no longer be forced to call all of the help “contractors” even if they prefer to have employees, and honest businesspeople will be able to ostracize dishonest ones just as they do in other areas of commerce.
Those two first sentences are a keeper. What a cogent and definitive quote.
Thank you! 🙂
I agree Gordon. Anyone who truly loves civil liberties (liberal, conservative, libetarian, or Green) should have those first two sentences tatooed on their heart. Maggie, you have my unalloyed admiration for this one.
Do I have this correct?
The women were hired as indie “contractors” but were charged for expenses (by the contracting agent) that would normally have been reimbursible by the contracting agent?
And now – since they will be made “employees” or even “owners” … the company will have to accept full liability for their actions? That could be dicey.
I agree with the ruling though.
Correct. It’s not at all uncommon in sex work for companies to consider girls contractors on paper, yet treat them as employees in reality. One example in escort services is to insist that they not work for anyone else, which (in Louisiana, at least) is one of the fundamental tests by which a contractor is distinguished from an employee. Since I treated my girls properly, they were free to work for as many agencies as they liked, and though some chose to only work for me, that was their decision.
Yeah, this is like a “chain” franchise of strip clubs right? Like “Gold Club”? I’m not up to date on strip clubs. Anyway – for a national chain to overlook such an important legal distinction is pretty embarrassing.
However, I think you are right. Since they’re engaged in a quasi-legal business – I guess they thought that not all elements of contracting law applied to them – kind of the way cops don’t feel that certain rights and liberties apply to sex workers.
This sort of crap is fairly common in IT work, too. I assume they get away with it in the sex industry for the same reason: When a large enough proportion of employers do it, there’s nowhere to jump ship to.
Actually, in my case, both first two sentences deserve the same degree of praise.
As to your comment A, it was amazing to me, in my younger days before my illness, when I could afford to hang out in strip clubs, how many of the ladies were in favor of someone forming a union that they could join to protect them from club owners, etc.. And you are right, they get away with it because almost everyone does it, and if you make a stink about it, you get black-balled, even though that is supposed to be illegal.
Maggie, I echo Gordon’s comments and emphasize those first two sentences are brilliant. Holy, Just and Full of Grace.
With Love,
Rich
🙂
With all due fairness, those sentences were written by Terry Pratchett. Maggie has impeccable taste in selecting them, though.
Oh, dear, I thought they meant my first two sentences, starting with “Religions and legal regimes insist that the way to make people better is by threatening them with unspeakable cruelty…“
And I here I thot Maggie was a pseudonym for Terry Pratchett.
Almost forgot. A very happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception to you, Maggie!
Interesting issue. As an independent contractors you are not entitled to any welfare benefits or statutory protection in Ireland, however the Courts here routinely error on the side of caution in interpreting the contract (i.e an employment contract is simply words, conduct can change the nature of the contract – so for instance giving someone sick pay once can imply it into all the contracts).
The difference between a contact of service (employment) and contract for services (independent contractor) the test is established as one of control (are they told what to do and instructed how to do it, can they delegate the work to someone else, etc.)
I’m always fascinated by the various use of such technicalities in the US and UK, even though I would be of the view they are relatively pointless under proper scrutiny. For instance, the common law position of immorality voiding a contract per Pearce v Brooks.
One thing I noticed when I lived in Australia, which has legal brothels, is that some of the stigma is reduced when the women are considered “workers”. Not all, certainly, but setting up sex work as WORK, and emphasizing the WORK part leads to fewer assumptions about moral failure, I think. It’s work, and like any job, people have lots of different reasons for choosing it.
Man, those two sentences suck!
Just kidding. I think they’re pretty cool, but somebody had to break the chain, if only in jest.
You have blue collar work (plumber, electrician, gravel pit), you have white collar work (data entry, drafting, receptionist), and you have no collar work (nude modeling, stripping, prostitution). All are people working for a living, and so they should all be treated as people working for a living.
A question: how different is the VIP room? Some of those dancers let you do a goodly amount of touching just out in the regular room, and I doubt they have full-on sex with you in the VIP room, so what is the diff? Is it really worth the extra money?
nothing happens in the vip room, really. just extended lap dances, plus you paying $200 for a $20 bottle of champagne
I suspected as much. There’s surely no way to know that the guy you’re dancing for in the VIP room isn’t a vice cop any more than in the regular room. It’s nice to think I could go into that room, spend some extra money, and have a happy ending, but it would be just too risky for her.
‘One thing I noticed when I lived in Australia, which has legal brothels, is that some of the stigma is reduced when the women are considered “workers”. ‘
When I moved to Nevada decades ago I noticed something similar. The “Native Nevadans” were proud of the brothels and the ladies. Even the ones who had never set foot in a brothel. Or at least, would not admit to it.
Yes i agree its work. If the employers messed up and extorted money from the contrators they deserve to be compensated for this form of thievery and down right deception to take from the lively hood of others in the field. Shame on them using old “rent day” tactics as I call them. Total garbage… glad something was given back. Only took a judge and time ect to get the truth out and proper justice for them.