Wicked is a self-described theater kid - a performer. Though managers allegedly told newbies to ignore her advice, Wicked said she taught them how to work the room. Wicked, an experienced dancer, said she took joy in taking "baby strippers" under her wing. Now, to stay afloat emotionally and financially, she's continuing to host the virtual performances. Reagan said she was fired after standing up for herself to a manager who was joking about a customer killing her. The time spent away from the club, she said, was a "wake-up call" to the pervasive safety issues that she said came into sharper focus when she returned. The performers could block a customer if they were being harassed, instead of waiting around for security to step in. Online, she said, the talent ran the show. "We realized that we have the know-how, the tools to create a community and an environment that we feel safe in and that we can perform and make money." She and her fellow dancers started hosting virtual shows. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Star Garden to close in 2020, Reagan, like many workers, took her business online. More recently, though, as she has leaned into her role as an activist, the wigs have been coming off. When Reagan first started giving interviews to media covering the dancers' strike, she often hid her long red hair with wigs. But rising rent prices and the lure of online pornography made it difficult to keep the lights on, forcing the club to shut down in 2013. Many of the Star Garden dancers say a strip club run as a co-op is the ultimate goal - which is just what the Lusty Lady strippers did when they bought out the venue in 2003. The Star Garden dancers take direct inspiration from a unionization effort 25 years ago led by strippers at the Lusty Lady, a defunct peep show in San Francisco that unionized when the strippers joined the Service Employees International Union. They're not the first group of strippers to take the union path. to be represented by a union, according to Actors' Equity, which represents more than 51,000 workers. If the dancers are successful, the Star Garden workers will become the only strippers in the U.S. "Safety onstage, safe backstage areas, sanitary backstage areas, having the employer take some responsibility for the behavior of audience members, making sure people aren't filmed or harassed by audience members, and that when any of those problems arise, that there is accountability on the part of the employer," Hoeschen told NPR. But they felt it was essential to stick up for one another in the face of unsafe working conditions.Īndrea Hoeschen, the union's general counsel, said it's clear that strippers need the protections afforded by a union for the same host of reasons as do actors and stage managers. All the dancers said they use the term "stripper" to describe their work and often use the label interchangeably with "dancer."ĭancers allege that management tried to foster a competitive environment and discourage friendships among them. They spoke to NPR on the condition that they be identified by only their stage names to protect their safety and privacy. NPR spoke to eight dancers for this story, all of whom said that they were contract employees and that they were unfairly terminated for raising safety and privacy concerns with management. When they attempted to meet with their bosses at the club the next day to discuss their grievances, the dancers said, they were locked out. On March 18, 15 of the club's 23 employees at the time delivered a petition to Star Garden's owners stating their demands. Those firings were the final push that drove the group of Star Garden dancers to take the first leap in an effort to unionize. After two dancers asked management to take basic measures to address their safety concerns, the dancers say, they were fired in retaliation. They allege that security fails to intervene when belligerent customers threaten and physically assault dancers, that dancers are filmed without consent and that arbitrary rules and quotas govern their job security. Since then, the dancers have taken their performances outside - picketing, putting on costumed runway shows and deterring customers from entering a space that they say failed to protect them. Reagan is among a group of former Star Garden employees who began striking outside the club six months ago. For many, it validates stripping as a legitimate form of work and performance. If their union election succeeds, the Star Garden dancers would become the first strippers ever represented by the Actors' Equity Association.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |