This is the fourth or fifth law suit this year.
Honestly it’s so awesome. A cadre of strippers are gonna go down as the leaders of the late 2010s labour movement–it’s not recognised by labour leaders yet but we’re doing the work that bought out unions used to do, and that Uber drivers are too disempowered to do.
I love us.
RALEIGH
A Raleigh strip club is one of the venues listed in a Colorado exotic dancer’s federal lawsuit claiming that the adult entertainment company she danced for exploited her and perhaps hundreds of others by requiring them to pay “house fees” to work.
Georgina Santich, the Colorado dancer, contends in the lawsuit filed in Denver late last week that VCG Holding Corp., which owns and operates The Men’s Club of Raleigh, failed to pay her minimum wages and overtime pay.
The corporation’s business model, the dancer contends, erroneously categorizes dancers as contract workers rather than employees who get hourly wages and qualify for overtime pay.
Not only are the dancers required to pay anywhere from $20 to work early afternoon shifts to more than $100 for prime shifts, they also are required to share tips with the club’s bouncers and DJs – some of whom regularly receive more than $200 a night in tips, according to the dancer’s complaint.
“This is a case about the exploitation of one of the most vulnerable groups of employees: young women working as dancers in adult entertainment establishments,” the lawsuit states.
Santich’s case is one of many wage and hour lawsuits that have been filed across the country in recent years challenging the common business model used by strip clubs.
She has asked for class-action status, which, if granted, could make it possible for dancers at The Men’s Club of Raleigh to benefit from any ruling.
The courts have wrangled before with the question of whether strip clubs are accurately classifying dancers.
In many of the cases, the clubs have argued that dancers are independent contractors or lessees who earn a decent living in their establishments without having to worry about legal liabilities or engage in the political fights that come with the territory of running adult entertainment businesses.
Federal judges, though, have sided with the performers over and over, saying the Fair Labor Standards Act protects their rights to be considered employees and paid wages, as well as provided such benefits as workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance.
In 2014, a New York federal judge awarded nearly $11 million to a class of exotic dancers who brought similar complaints.
Some 11,000 exotic dancers in California and Nevada settled their state and federal misclassification claims against the Spearmint Rhino chain of adult entertainment clubs for $12.97 million.
Some club owners have tried to get around the classification challenges by getting dancers to sign agreements saying they are temporarily leasing space in the clubs to conduct their business, similar to how some hair salons lease space to stylists.
In those agreements, the club owners often include arbitration clauses in which the dancers agree to give up their right to sue.
Deja Vu, which owns Rouge in Portland, and Stars in Portland, and Casa Diablo have all tried to get around this recently with offering the “choice” of status, which isn’t legally binding, but young women uneducated about labour law often believe they are, and in this way men continue to reap the profits of young women’s labour without offering any protections or padding against taxes, even as these very men try to wriggle out of the full tax amount by having dancers pay under the table, not report credit card lap dances, &c.
It’s all such a scam.
And so are the arbitration clauses, which don’t entirely hold up but do hold the dancer liable for fees.
Exotic dancer’s lawsuit in Colorado could have impact on Raleigh club
Mooncustafer 