Sex workers of the world, unite

“Sex work is work” was coined by sex worker Carol Leigh in the late 1970s and is still in popular use by workers in the industry.

“The reason we coined that phrase was not to glamorise the industry or say that sex work in itself is great, it’s the opposite, we’re saying work in itself is shit,” dancer Amélie explains.

“Work is inherently exploitative. That’s why we’ve coined that phrase; to say just like any other worker in any other industry we need to be able to have access to unions, collective bargaining and general labour rights.”

The return of Cheltenham Races saw something of an uproar in the media over the past months concerning the decision made by Cheltenham Borough Council to grant a temporary licence to a club in the town to operate a pop-up sexual entertainment venue (SEV) for the duration of the races week.

The scent of cash – or rather contactless only – in the air surrounding Cheltenham was overpowering.

The licensed nature of Cheltenham’s pop-up SEV means that for strippers like Amélie and Gemma, a safe and regulated space with CCTV and security is provided for them to work in. Or rather, it was earlier in the week.

On one evening, the club they had planned to work at called them up last minute and cancelled, citing a lot of dancers having bailed as the reason.

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Read more: Nighttime economy adviser says her position on strip clubs is irrelevant

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Amélie and Gemma were speaking to Bristol24/7 on their way from Cheltenham to Cardiff, where a Six Nations rugby game was taking place and they were going to work that evening, Gemma’s sat-nav occasionally piping up with additions to the conversation.

The precarious nature of their work is one of the reasons why both women are members of United Sex Workers, a member-led branch of the United Voices of the World trade union which supports sex workers from various sectors, including strippers, porn performers and full-service workers (escorts).

Audrey, a representative of United Sex Workers, explained that the importance of sex workers unionising stems from a lack of rights and protections at work, which leads to a potential for violence and exploitation.

“Sex work isn’t inherently violent,” Audrey told Bristol24/7. “But sex workers are currently more at risk of facing violence because clients and exploiters know that sex workers can’t call the police, that there are very few services open to us, that decades of criminalisation and stigma have forced us to work in increasingly isolated and precarious conditions.”

This underlines why both regulated SEVs and unionisation are so important for strippers.

Central Chambers is one of the two strip clubs in Bristol city centre – photo: Martin Booth

“The answer is to give people more workers’ rights”

Spearmint Rhino, the formerly licensed club in Sheffield, where Gemma has lived for the past five years, shut down in 2020 following the onset of Covid-19, forcing her to travel to Huddersfield in order to find safe work.

Following a citywide consultation, members of Bristol City Council’s licensing committee have still not yet made a decision about whether to impose a ban on strip clubs, known as a nil-cap.

Amélie works in Bristol and believes that any decision on a nil-cap will not be made until June at the earliest.

There are currently two legal SEVs operating in Bristol: Urban Tiger on Broad Quay and Central Chambers on St Stephen’s Street.

If the nil-cap is imposed and they have to shut down, Amélie says that strippers would have to work in a different city, some would turn to agency work, working in private homes, AirBnBs and hotel rooms with no security or CCTV.

Gemma agrees, explaining that sex work will happen regardless of legality and she wants to be able to be as safe as possible while working.

“We do often get anti-sex work groups saying that it’s an extremely exploitative industry therefore it needs to be shut down,” Amélie said.

“We don’t fully disagree that it is exploitative but maybe not in the way that they think. I think a lot of it is that they think that our boundaries get pushed, that it’s exploitative on the customers’ side, but we think there are issues with bosses being exploitative.

“Like in any industry the answer shouldn’t be to close down those workplaces and those industries, the answer is to give those people more workers’ rights.”

https://twitter.com/afrenchstripper/status/1503815224499056645

“A lot of dancers don’t want to associate themselves with people who do full service”

United Sex Workers has threatened to take the city council to court if a nil-cap is imposed, on the grounds that it would break the Equality Act.

Part way into our chat, Gemma received a call from Cheltenham, who were trying to entice her back across the border with the promise of refunding the house fee she had paid in advance to work on Saturday night.

“They said they were going to close because too many girls had cancelled,” she said after unmuting herself. “But nine girls turned up and now they’re going to run a private party and I’m welcome to come back if I like.”

Gemma did not like this scenario and she demanded compensation for having travelled so far. This is not forthcoming given that the contract she signed said that the organisers could cancel at any time.

Both women were asked to pay house fees upfront for every night they were due to work at Cheltenham on the day of their arrival.

This is a flat fee paid to the venue that on quiet nights that can sometimes result in dancers being out of pocket. Due to their reluctance to go back, they were unsure if they will ever see this money again, although the venue did assure them that it would be refunded.

In 2020, United Sex Workers won in a court case brought forward by a former dancer at Browns, a strip club in London. The judge ruled that the dancers could be classified as workers, giving them legal worker status and access to sick pay while still being self-employed.

Despite this increase in rights, many dancers are still reluctant to join unions.

“A lot of dancers don’t understand what worker status means, they think it means we’re going to be employees which they don’t want because we obviously want to have flexibility,” Amélie said.

“There is also a lot of whorephobia within the industry. A lot of dancers don’t want to associate themselves with people who do full service.”

Club owners sometimes charge dancers not only a house fee to work at the venue, but often a commission fee too.

Because of the reluctance to join unions it is difficult to fight back against this, as the majority of dancers in a club must be unionised in order for unions to intervene with unfair working conditions. Amélie said that she can’t remember this ever having happened at a club.

The club Amélie works at in Bristol is “very strict” she says, which is good because it means the dancers are safe. She knows the majority of the dancers at the club, many of whom she is friends with outside of work, and describes the atmosphere as being very friendly.

This atmosphere is no doubt helped by the clubs in Bristol now having to cooperate with the union, given that their campaign is essential to the clubs staying open.

United Sex Workers can be joined online, and operates a staggered fee system on the basis of income.

Main photo: Martin Booth

Read more: Union threatens council with legal action if strip clubs are banned in Bristol

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