Jay Inslee on March Clubs must provide dancers with panic buttons in each private room. The new bill also allows the sale of alcohol at strip clubs. The Strippers' Bill of Rights, which is a first-of-its-kind bill in the whole history of the country, is a powerful landmark in the fight for sex work to be acknowledged as legitimate work. The bill may seem like it came out of the blue, but sex workers' rights activists have been laying the groundwork for this for years in Washington State and beyond.
You may have already heard of the recent strippers unions formed at clubs in Los Angeles and in Portland , Oregon, in Angelique of Seattle-based activist group Strippers Are Workers SAW said, "Getting to this point was a long journey that started in when I started the Seattle Strips website to create a safe space for my colleagues and I to strategize on how to improve our working conditions. I started by sounding out local attorneys for help. Everyone was sympathetic, but ultimately the solution was political, and we needed to do something dancers really did not tend to do back then: unite.
Because stripping is a highly stigmatized form of labor, working conditions in strip clubs across the country often leave much to be desired, and because of the stigma of sex work, it can be very difficult for dancers to demand certain rights.
Dancers are essentially independent contractors who have to pay the club house fees for the ability to work there every shift. Sexual harassment often goes unchecked or dismissed, and basic dancer safety is frequently disregarded, as the bottom line is what's often most important to club management. Many of these clubs are also multinational conglomerates.
Many clubs have moved away from small private ownership to being owned by larger companies looking to acquire investments or clubs that become franchises. These are the larger, more commercial nationwide clubs, like Hustlers, Spearmint Rhino, and Deja Vu, to name a few. House fees can often lead dancers to not only make no surplus money, but also to start their shifts in debt to the club. Since the Strippers' Bill of Rights allows alcohol sales, clubs will now be able to lean on that for more revenue instead of leaning on workers.
