In the decade I was on the masthead of San Francisco area adult weekly Spectator, I often covered sexworker activism. I took great pride in my 1997 article about how the women of the Lusty Lady Theater fought back and unionized against an abusive workplace. For posterity I offer an edited, condensed version of that story.
Picture this: you’re horribly sick: temperature, chills, the whole nine yards. You should be in bed, but if you don’t show up for work, your hourly wage will be cut in half, requiring you work at least half a year to build it back up to where it was.
Now imagine your employer capriciously promotes, disciplines and fires its workers regardless of merit or seniority. Your job is to sit naked in a booth and masturbate for patrons. But what you didn’t agree to is men sitting behind one way glass and shooting videos of you without your consent. And your employer refuses to do anything about it.
That was the final straw that saw the women of the Lusty Lady Theater joining Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union. Their unionization was a slow, tortuous process maintained only by the tenacity of the dancers and their resolve to overcome injustice. The threat of a union inspired the management to remove the one-ways, but this did not divert the dancers, who saw the glass as but symbol of the inequity.
With so many other wrongs in their workplace, these ladies formed the Exotic Dancers Alliance. In addition to the typical union organizing activities—they met management in arbitration, the discussed the issues with their coworkers, and they picketed—they staged a “no-pink” day.
To achieve their goals, including maintaining a strike fund, the EDA threw fundraisers to support its activities. This intrepid reporter has been invited to read from her work at the last two of these events and covered the most recent benefit for the readers of Spectator.
Thursday, June 12 I arrived at Big Heart City in San Francisco at 7:30 with my usual slutty stage attire, a tape recorder, camera and a handful of Spectator model releases. Amidst the controlled madness of bands loading in, merchandise tables being stocked, and performers and organizers getting ready, I bagged my first interview.
Carol Leigh aka Scarlet Harlot is an infamous sexworkers activist in the SF Bay Area. She explained, “Organizing dancers in San Francisco is the forefront of the sex worker rights movement. When we see the pathetic conditions that dancers are working in some of the clubs and when we talk about the advances that women have made, it is clear that now is the time for dancers to really organize.”
The show began as emcee Julia Query took the stage. She had the crowd in stitches with poignant jabs at the employers and customers in the sex biz. She continued her anecdotes and one-liners in between the spoken word performers with their accounts of sex work and feminism. Gina Gold, Siobhan Brooks, Michelle Tea and Yours Truly were among the featured readers presenting highly autobiographical material.
After my stint on stage I spoke with “Desiree” about the Exotic Dancers Alliance. She said, “We do a job that’s strange to most people, but it’s really just a service job. It shouldn’t be anything different than—like the plumbers having a union. We need representation and security, and it’s a serious matter.”
With no small irony she remarked, “The only reason we got press coverage was because it was strippers. And even though they did cover it, they missed the whole point—that we’re like other people. We’re just doing a job. Just because it’s a strange sort of underbelly-type job doesn’t mean we don’t deserve rights or shouldn’t have our union.”
She concluded with,“I feel like something is going here that is revolutionary that nobody cares about sometimes. It seems like when people hear the words ‘strip club’ they can’t get past that and can’t figure out the further implications. A lot of people get hung up on what we’re doing, and that’s the least thing. The important thing is that we’re workers and we weren’t getting what we should get.”
EDA organizer Jane Noe summarized just a portion of the grief the dancers went through to form their union and get it ratified. She recounted how right before a 1996 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election, the Lusty Lady management hired a big law firm infamous for busting unions. They posted misleading flyers in the dressing room, pressured small groups of dancers, and tried to undercut the organizers.
“They followed the standard union-busting script,” Jane said, “but they failed miserably and really just wasted a lot of money because we won 57 to 15.”
In the fourth month of management obstruction contract negotiations, the dancers staged their first job action. “We called it ‘No-Pink Day,’” said Jane. “Almost all the dancers participated: they suddenly became very modest and stood at the back of the stage and didn’t supply the product the customers were expecting.”
The theater retaliated by firing one of the women, Summer. The EDA women picketed the strip joint, which finally drove management to the table. The performers got their contract and Summer got her job back. Jane said, “That was a real turning point. It became very concrete to them how powerful we could be when we needed to be, and that’s when they started to negotiate in good faith. … Things are very different now.”
One of the members of contract bargaining committee was Julia Query, who told me, “Unionization has had a major impact on working conditions at the Lusty Lady. … Now we have a higher starting salary and a standard pay scale such that in seven and a half months you’ll be at $21 an hour. They can no longer withhold raises; they can no longer do favoritism. Absolutely everybody there is on standard uniform pay scale.
“The economic advantage went to the new dancers, but all of us had a huge benefit from unionizing because we no longer are subject to the one-way mirrors which was the original issue. But we now also have a grievance and arbitration procedure for when we are not treated fairly by management. We now have a way and a right to fight them about that instead of having to take their abuse.
“Some people are afraid of unions because there are some corrupt unions, but sex workers need to improve working conditions because they’re not good enough. Through unity we can do that. I hope that everyone, customers and dancers and sex workers everywhere can realize that with improved working conditions, the sex industry will be better for customers and better for workers.”
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