"If you work hard at this industry," Sarah says, "you'll get what you deserve. I'm worried the employee thing is going to become an industry standard."
Sarah also acknowledges that her viewpoint be skewed by her experience at higher-end clubs, where making well above minimum wage is the norm. "A lot of the girls I talk to at work don't care because we're the top earners," she says. "This could potentially hurt our group. It's only good for the low earners."
Kennedy, the lawyer for the Abilene strippers, disagrees that an employee system has to spell bad news for any dancer. "All [club owners] need to do is pay them $2.13 per hour," he says. "That's legal. And let them keep all of their tips — period." Requiring employees to share tips, he says, is illegal in every industry.
There's also the matter of all that pesky paperwork. Not having a paper trail of income is helpful if dancers plan on being less than truthful on their taxes, or if they don't file at all. And in clubs where women are covertly selling "extras" — something dancers say is common — "the contractor system takes the club off the hook," Rebecca Avalon says. In 2007, the Penthouse Key Club, a now-shuttered club on Stemmons, was shut down for five months after a prostitution sting netted 21 arrests of dancers. There's no record of managers or owners being arrested.
Overall, though, Avalon says it's pretty basic why the clubs prefer the contractor system. "The clubs like it because they don't pay anything," she says, chuckling. "We pay them. It's not just cheap labor, it's profitable labor."
On a recent Friday, Avalon looks out on the main floor of the Lodge with a professional eye. She's wearing the most risqué possible version of a black evening gown, a heavy silver chain with a jade charm around her neck and a slim silver wristwatch. She has very long blonde hair and subtle blue eye-shadow, and she smells like perfume and strawberry lip gloss. She has a 20-dollar bill wound absentmindedly around two fingers as she points a French-tipped nail at a table about 20 feet away. "That guy," she says, "He's a blue."
Part of Avalon's business model involves "personality profiling," as she puts it, complete with a color code: Customers are generally either reds, blues, greens or yellows. "Red are the businessmen," she explains, pushing her hair onto one shoulder. "They're more formally dressed. The VIP type. And they want attention." Blues, meanwhile, are "the fun guy," spiky-haired, often wearing Ed Hardy if they're young or Tommy Bahama if they're older. "They're here to party," she says. "They're the guy who's buying everyone else a drink."
Avalon likes to focus in on reds and blues first, "because they make decisions quickly," she says. Quick sales from them help balance out the greens, who are bargain hunters ("You know them as soon as you sit down at the table") and yellows, the regulars: faithful, quiet guys who want to talk at length before buying a dance or time in the VIP section. (At the Lodge, the VIP area is only for people who have bought club memberships or who buy a $500 bottle of Champagne.)
Avalon points out a corpulent guy who looks to be in his late 40s. He's wearing a red polo shirt and balancing a very small Asian dancer in his lap. He looks delighted. He's a "fun guy" blue, Avalon says. "When I was on the side stage earlier tonight," she says, "he came in and already had a dollar ready, he was dancing around, all that."
She got to work at around 9 tonight. Her early arrival meant that she paid no house fees, but it had a downside: There were three customers in the whole place, and dozens of dancers competing for their attention. Her first interaction with a customer that night was tough going, bargaining-wise, she says. "He knew he had the upper hand." Her business, she says, "is all negotiation."
Not entirely though. Some of it, Avalon says after a moment, also involves working smartly. Although the Lodge tries for a slightly more dignified atmosphere, all over Dallas you can see women doing wild acrobatics on stripper poles: climbing to the very top, for example, then sliding down head first, using only their leg muscles for support. It's an impressive feat, and probably a killer workout. And Avalon's worked in the "day-glo outfits and fishnets" clubs where such things are common. But she quickly concluded that they're not worth her time.
"I have danced for 12 years and I don't climb a pole ever," she says. "The job is not about dancing. It's about talking to someone, making connections. It's kind of like being a topless therapist. You get paid for your time to stop, listen to people and entertain them."
Plus, as an independent contractor, Avalon knows that if she falls on her head on the way down, she's not getting money for her injury or time off from the club. (In 2007, an Indiana dancer who injured her cervical spine while pole dancing managed to successfully sue for worker's comp, but that's not common.)
threre will be about 1 million new veterans added to the 22 million American veterans as active-duty service members leave the military over the next five years.This increase in veterans to serve means a larger budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs. President Barack Obama's proposed budget includes $140.3 billion for the VA to cover the 2012 fiscal year beginning Oct.
When employees are injured on the job, they ere entitled to certain benefits including medical care, lost wages, permanent impairment,
disfigurement, and permanent disability. Unfortunately Workers’ Compensation is a very complicated, fast-paced, and technical – your claim and
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This problem is caused by the third party wanting to interfere in the private business between the club owners and the dancers.
@Tim Lebsack The problem is caused by club owners and managers who have skirted the law by encouraging and coercing drug use, prostitution, and money above all else. They are reaping what they sow... most of these girls are not even 25 years old, come from broken homes, and have zero to slim protection from these wannabe pimps and thugs. If the club owners were acting responsibly this would not be an issue. Not to mention their actions violate employment law; independent contractors should be free to come and go when they please, whereas dancers are required to work 7-8 hour shifts and must get permission to leave and are scheduled to work certain days by management. No more whoring out our precious asset, young females, for liquor sales and room charges, change the law now! If these managers had to pay an hourly wage, they would be selective in who they hired instead of trying to make house fees off every girl that fills out an application, drug user, escort, or not.
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If they become employees, they would have to pay taxes on the salary that they are paid by the strip club owners. I wonder how many of them are paying taxes as independent contractors?
" "A lot of the girls I talk to at work don't care because we're the top earners," she says. "This could potentially hurt our group. It's only good for the low earners." "
Wow, really? So because you're part of the financially elite, you don't want anything to change, even though that change could benefit those who are poor? That's why there are such terrible problems with poverty in the US, because those who have money don't care.
@Xeginy This is an absurd comment, if the girls understood they would be getting free house fees, not required to tipout, and getting paid an hourly wage PLUS whatever they make in tips, they would be all for it. Get educated about the issue.
No, it's because of you don't make money taking your clothes off for money, you shouldn't hurt the ones who do well.
why should they be punished for working hard? the system for them is the same. you hustle hard and you make money, you dont? you make less. there are always those who want to take the easy road and get paid the same. i see it everyday
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no, i do not want strippers to get official employee rights, it would cause our income to be tracked and then what !! the current system has its flaws of course, but those flaws allow us to have the freedom we have as dancers. If i want i can go to blue cross and blue shield and get the best health insurance in the world, on my own without government intervention.
@Mysti Dancer if you really believe this honey, you need to sit down and think about this because you don't know what you are saying.
Uh huh. I hope that you're reporting all income earned to the IRS, and that your reported income matches what passes through your bank accounts. And your lifestyle should match your reported income. And you do file a tax return every year, right? The penalties for tax evasion - not reporting income - and not filing returns can be substantial.
@Sa Really? Thanks for the accounting advice, but if anyone takes financial advise on an internet comment page, they should be tar and feathered. Stick to what you know, avoid preaching, and stop trolling.
ahhhhhh, a stripper with a brain.........hmmmm, like a meth addict with a conscience? jus' sayin'.
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That just means that you don't have enough money for the smart ones toSit with you. ;)
"...that they have to give up their tips to the house, because that's the house's money"
And the next lawsuit that he loses will be for stealing tips in violation of federal labor law.
Interesting article. How in the world are the clubs getting away with classifying the waitresses, let alone the dancers, as independent contractors? I thought labor laws were pretty clear in respect to waiters & waitresses.
I suspect that the majority of dancers aren't aware to the tax writeoffs available to them. I would guess, though, that many of them have their own systems for maximizing their tips.
@Sa The get away with more then you could ever imagine.
However waitresses are not classified as independents. They receive a $2.17 to $5 an hour plus tips, on average.
Most aren't dancing because their other career option was being a brain surgeon.
Easy mark for the lawyers....
@Joe You must be a brain surgeon yourself. If they werent violating the law in numerous ways, the lawyers wouldnt have a leg to stand on in a court of law. Club owners are guilty of a myriad of illegal activities, obviously you wouldnt know about that seeing how you work in a hospital performing surgeries on brains (maybe an operation on yourself is in order)
That is why there are more and more people would consider it as a healthy sport item like Yoga.
I've worked as an independent contractor. There were no expectations of schedule or hours on site, merely that the project would be completed on-time. I did spend time on site, and usually during normal business hours, but that is when others are most available to meet with. I chose when to be on site.
The article quotes one of the owners or lawyers, something to the effect that the dancers are free to become employees and be paid $9.00 per hour with minimal benefits if they choose to. Guess what? Nobody's going to choose that option, are they?
Let's see. $500 per night times 5 nights per week = $2500 per week x 52 weeks = $130,000 in revenues. Some expenses come out of that, but one would think that the dancers could easily fork over $7K to $10K per year for health insurance out of that! And they can buy their own worker's comp insurance, too. Seems like a good deal for the average dancer who takes their job seriously, and isn't just dancing in order to snort and shoot up.
@Dan You start by saying you have worked as an independent contractor, but lack credibility by continuing to spew total unfounded nonsense. How do you know they make $500 a night, are you a former dancer? Or are you simply a mark who likes to hand out 500 to every stripper you meet? Your post reeks of someone who knows nothing of the business except maybe a patrons viewpoint and a slow one at that. Ive been a manager in the industry for years and I know firsthand that most girls make between $200 and $300 a night without calculating expenses. The majority dont make $500+ a night. Of course the escorts make that much and girls offering extras may make more, but the every day stripper that only wants to dance does not and they work mandatory 8 hour shifts, which means they are scheduled to work, which means they should be paid a wage, if you know anything about the business youd know that. Independent contractors are given free will to work when they want. Some girls walk away with $50-100 a night after spending $50 on house fees, tipping out mandatory $20, and making between 100-200. The cabaret owners and managers have made a mockery out of the business for years its time the golden days where girls are mistreated and owners make a bundle while incompetent managers hire drug users and prostitutes at no cost to them because each girl is a revenue stream need to end. Regulation and reclassification of these employees is a necessity to clean up these clubs and give these guys time to rethink their strategies and theyre business models. Keep quiet when you know nothing of what you speak, you sound like a bitter mark.
You are making a couple of mistakes in your calculations. One, you are assuming that every stripper works 5 nights a week, and that she makes that $500 every night. This is very foolish of you.
It is only the top earners at a top club who will make that kind of money consistently, and everyone has a slow night. And more than half the women stripping are doing it because they can make enough working 2-3 nights a week to live on a shoestring while they go to college or raise their kids.
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Someone is a bitter hater Laredo. You have some serious issues towards strippers. Broke? Ugly? Both? Or do you just hate pretty girls because you can't have them?
The old stand-by retort, ( and only ), from a whore trying to make what she does sound glamorous and respectful.
I thought this was explained in the article. I believe makeup, hair products, and costumes were given as examples. You'd be surprised how expensive makeup and hair products can be.
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