Over the last year, strippers have won court case after court case challenging the employment practices at ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ across the country.
The dancers have argued that the practices, which attempt to circumvent minimum wage and other federal laws, violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. Courts not only have agreed but often have handed out big fines. The trend signals that the practices have become a significant legal liability for the clubs.
“If the industry leaders are being found liable it means that most people are going to have to follow suit,” said Joshua Parkhurst, a New York labor attorney who is representing dancers in a pending lawsuit against a Farmington, N.Y., club. He doesn’t expect change to come swiftly, though, noting that many dancers are still reluctant to seek legal action.
When the dancers do, they typically win. On Thursday, a federal judge in Texas awarded two former San Antonio dancers $250,000 in their case against Tiffany’s Cabaret after a jury found that the club had willfully violated minimum wage laws.
Last month, a federal judge awarded more than $265,000 to six dancers who filed a suit against two clubs in Maryland’s Prince George’s County. In a November, a federal judge in New York awarded nearly $11 million to participants in a class-action suit against Rick’s Cabaret, a Manhattan club, which is appealing the judgment.
The Nevada Supreme Court ruled in October in favor of six dancers who filed a class-action suit against Las Vegas’ Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club. Also in October, a class-action suit against three Manhattan clubs resulted in a $4.3 million settlement for 250 dancers. An Arkansas federal judge in July awarded three dancers $30,000 in their lawsuit against a Little Rock club.
A spokesman for the Association of Club Executives, a trade association that represents gentlemen’s clubs, could not be reached for comment.
The common thread in the cases was the dancers’ claim that the clubs’ employment practices were specifically designed to skirt federal labor law. In most cases, the dancers were not hired as either hourly or salaried employees but rather as independent contractors. That exempts them from overtime and minimum wage regulations as well as requirements that they be provided healthcare and other benefits. In addition, the clubs regularly charge the dancers various fees, even just to take the stage to dance, and deduct money if the dancers violate any club rules.
“The norm is the contractor arrangement. They make you sign an agreement signing away your other rights if you want to work there,” said Rochelle, who works as a dancer and bartender at Washington-area clubs and didn’t give her last name. That means for most dancers their main source of income is tips from customers, and even then the business can demand a cut.
“They basically have to pay to work,” Parkhurst said, noting that it is not uncommon for dancers to make nothing at all if it has been a slow week.
Courts have repeatedly ruled that these arrangements violate federal law because the clubs’ strict terms and conditions for work mean that the dancers are not really independent contractors.
“To really be independent contractors, they’d have to be able to exercise control over the conditions of their employment,” Parkhurst added. “They could not, for example, subcontract their work and bring in another dancer.”
The strippers he is currently representing could not even choose the songs for their dance sets.
The San Antonio case was different from most in that the dancers were officially club employees. Nevertheless, the club paid the dancers below minimum wage under a federal exemption for tipped employees and tacked numerous charges onto their work schedules. Dancers had to pay a $26 fee per shift to take the stage and were obligated to share their tips with the non-dancers — bartenders, DJ, kitchen staff, and others — who worked at the club. The managers argued the wages combined with the tips meant the dancers were getting well above the minimum wage. A federal judge rejected that, saying the club’s actions were “not in good faith.”
At the club where Rochelle currently works, the dancers get paid $2.77 a hour, the minimum for tipped employees in Washington. Even under those circumstances, a dancer can still make good money through tips, she says, which is why many don’t want to rock the boat.
