E.D.A. Newsletter #8

Exotic Dancer's Alliance
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Issue No. 8 
Spring 1997                                                              

E.D.A. GENERAL INFORMATION

The reorganization plan for Bijou Group, Inc. (Market Street Cinema, Century Theater) was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in mid December of 1996; under the plan, management must contribute at least $19,000 per month to a creditor's fund which will pay back both secured and unsecured claims. All administrative fees ($150,000 for a portion of IRS fees, $100,000 for Bijou's attorneys, $44,000 for the Bankruptcy Court appointed examiner, $20,000 for unpaid S.F. City & Co. taxes, and $10,000 for plaintiff's attorney fees) must be paid first, before any dancers will receive compensation. If Bijou does not comply with the reorganization plan, they may be sanctioned by the Bankruptcy Court judge and/or the business may be sold to Deja Vu. Currently, management has stopped paying hourly wages to dancers at both Market Street Cinema & Century Theater stating that the dancers make more in tips than from paid wages in accordance with the "quota" system; however, many dancers have to either borrow money from their colleagues or bring "insurance money" with them to work in order to meet high quotas of $150 or more and resist suspension or termination of employment by management.

A former dancer of the Crazy Horse Theater was recently awarded back wages as well as compensation for the payment of "stage fees" during the time of her employment with the theater--she is the first claimant in a San Francisco Labor Commission case to receive compensation for back wages and return of stage fees from an adult entertainment theater. A second wage and hour claim has been filed against the theater with the State of California Labor Commission by another dancer who had worked at the Crazy Horse for over four years; she has recently completed her conference with management and the Labor Commission and is now awaiting a hearing date.

Negotiations for a contract between employees and management at the Lusty Lady are still in progress; employees are bargaining for job security, health benefits, guaranteed shifts & raises, paid time off for vacation & illness, equal treatment--no favoritism, grievance and discrimination policies. Management recently conducted a 1-2 day lockout, firing one dancer and threatening to fire another, in response to an on site demonstration by bargaining unit employees; the employees were joined by other S.E.I.U., Local 790 members and supporters for a protest outside of the theater during the lockout--both of the dancer's positions were quickly reinstated.

Judge Cahill recently denied a motion submitted by the Independent Dancers Association (IDA) requesting to intervene as an independent class in the class action suit against the Mitchell Brother's O'Farrell Theater for the third time; the women have appealed the judge's decision, but the appeal process could legally take up to two years during which time the case may have already been concluded. The judge did, however, grant a motion on behalf of the plaintiffs to protect women who are part of the class and currently working against management retaliation.

On March 21, 1994 I filed, along with my co-plaintiff, Ellen Vickery, a class action lawsuit against the Mitchell Brother'(s) O'Farrell Theater contending that the dancers there had been misclassified as independent contractors rather than employees. This point had already been proven in individual cases presented to the San Francisco Labor Commission and in other courts around the country. This moment was the culmination of five years of witnessing oppressive labor practices to the point of no longer fearing the prospect of threat for personal safety, being blacklisted, or public revelation.

I was raised in a New England town that had a reputation as a hotbed for '60's radicals who had escaped the college demonstrations and urban jungles of the east coast to live on communes, stage performances of "The Tempest" and grow pot. Even though I was surrounded by these progressive thinkers, I never thought I would ever be an activist in any "active" sense of the word, just an activist by virtue of location. When my mother went to the civil rights march in Washington D.C., I thought that the coolest thing about it was that I got to stay home and not eat vegetables. When I did my high school apprenticeship with the local poet and social rebel, Verandah Porche, I heard her accounts of volatile social protests ring with the nostalgia of future history book chapters. When Shoshanna, the clerk at The Good Life, was arrested by the FBI one afternoon because she was one of the Weathermen, a group who blew up stuff at the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago, I wondered if she still had the same beliefs that she had then. To me she was just the lady who turned me on to dried papaya slices in bulk at the health food store. When I was very little, my parents insisted that I watch Martin Luther King's funeral on TV. They told me he was a very important man and I should know that he died for his convictions.

Being an activist seemed like a dangerous thing that made people sad, got them arrested or even killed.

By the time I got to college, there were no demonstrations happening. A political activist seemed to be a character from the past, Rosie-the Riveters graduated to wearing bell bottoms, no bra and coke bottle shades, smoking a joint. It was the '80's after all, still long before it was trendy to dress this way again. I thought I better hurry up and figure out what I was supposed to be when I grew up. I went to San Francisco for summer vacation after my sophomore year and fell under the spell of the City by the Bay.

I had first heard of San Francisco from a novel I fell in love with as a kid about the gold rush days. The book was chock full of characters who were wild, irreverent heathens who lived Life in anything but the strict moral code of their day. They had a lot of fun. I always thought that I would go to San Francisco someday, where veins of gold riddled the hillsides and no one worried about what they were going to be when they grew up. So when I finally did go west, it seemed perfectly natural that I would meet some wild, irreverent women who were intelligent, creative and gorgeous. They also worked as strippers. It also seemed perfectly natural to join them.

The last thing I thought this radical break with my WASP training would lead me to was being an activist of any kind. I thought I was going to be wild, irreverent and have a lot of fun. But becoming an activist is not the result of an overactive imagination or a romantic obsession with the '60's. It is the result, usually, of years of bearing the weight of some injustice that erodes at your sense of self, even after strong doses of fear tactics are delivered and the deep training of a female in this culture to be "seen and not heard" hangs on like a claw. One day the psyche wakes up and says to yourself, "I'm not going to stand silent anymore; I'm not going to be afraid."
In the final analysis, when I decided to file a class action lawsuit against the Mitchell Brother(s) O'Farrell Theater, it was a simple decision--I'd do it if one woman would join me. After years of seeing dancers have to pay for the right to not only make a living, but also put up with many acts of intimidation and coercion, I simply could not keep silent anymore. We paid to work and were called "bitches" and "whores" at company meetings. We paid to work and were fired for not allowing friends of the management to fondle us. We paid to work and were told to get down on our hands and knees in a daisy chain or we'd lose our jobs. (This couldn't possibly be "control" could it?) As my initial co-plaintiff, Lily Burana, said, "it's really very simple. You don't pay to work; you are paid to work." After all, what would the O'Farrell Theater be without the dancers? ...a mirrored warehouse with faded carpet and a snack bar attached.

"Why would women put up with this abuse?", you might ask. Why wouldn't they go and work somewhere else?' Well, despite the analysis of many politically correct feminists and despite the attacks of such "enlightened" thinkers as Camille Paglia, women are culturally indoctrinated to tolerate a lot of intimidation, put up with a blurring of our personal boundaries and, above all, trained to be silent, no matter what industry they work in. The sex industry is not just going to be stamped out as some of our "feminist" sisters would hope. There have always been erotic entertainers; there always will be. All cultures seem to have a need to explore eroticism: that is a part of being human. And, not every man or woman wants to get married and have 2.5 children and work in the corporate world. It is also a matter of simple economics that women have to make a living in a world in which they still experience a great deal of marginalization.

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The most potent aspect of this lawsuit for me so far has not been the moments of facing my former managers across a deposition table, it has not been starting a class action that now consists of 418 women. Instead, to see the silence of women spread from fear and intimidation like a vapor out from under the street has been the most potent aspect. I passed out hundreds of fliers with my phone number on it over the last three years, but received very few calls, even from women I've called friends. Women whose baby showers I'd had at my home, in whose home I'd spent holidays, couldn't even call to ask the simple question, "what is this lawsuit all about, anyway?" Words of encouragement came furtively via chance meetings in the supermarket, the gym, hair salon, on the street and through other friends: "Hey, I ran into so-and-so and they said, 'Way to go with the lawsuit! You know I support what you're doing, I just can't put it out there. I can't lose this job with my kids and all. You know I can't talk about it at work.'

To this day, the fact that the majority of women still have very little idea about the merits of the lawsuit was again made apparent at the benefit for the Exotic Dancer's Alliance, held last September. A small herd of women were escorted by one of the defendants in the case, Vince Stanich, who runs an unlicensed talent agency for Jim Mitchell. The herd came with catchy-sloganed signs that read, "Go home Local 2...if we wanted a pimp it wouldn't be you." A few members of Local 2, the Hotel And Restaurant Employees And Bartenders Union, helped us carry signs in 1994 at a demonstration we held protesting a benefit Jim Mitchell had at the American Music Hall honoring his dead brother. That has been the entire extent of Local 2's connection to the case.

Once again, its about being paid to work, not paying to work; its about improving our working conditions, and, most importantly, its about breaking the silence of fear. No matter what becomes of this lawsuit, whether dancers are ruled to be employees or true independent contractors in the future, its' impact is already being felt.

Dancers always ask each other: "What becomes of strippers when they leave the industry?" Well, here's one stripper/activist/wild woman who's not disappearing into the silence.

The daisy chain can be something that binds us together against our will for someone else's profit, or it can be a symbol of our linking together to build strength.