On March 25, strippers in Washington celebrated a well-fought victory when Governor Inslee signed Senate Bill (SB) 6105 into law to create stronger workplace policies. Since the law passed both the state Senate and House, those working within the industry say they feel more reassured that their safety will be a top priority as they continue to generate a liveable income.
SB 6105 — or the “stripper bill of rights,” as it’s commonly referred to — will require strip clubs to provide workplace safety training to all employees. Additionally, employers must now remove exploitative financial systems, which had dancers responsible for a majority of the clubs’ fees. The bill will also provide a different income stream, as clubs can now qualify for liquor licenses. Advocates say this supplemental way to earn money will alleviate much of the financial burden that rested on strippers.
SB 6105 is the brainchild of Strippers Are Workers (SAW), a local advocacy organization created in 2016. In January, Real Change interviewed Madison Zack-Wu, SAW’s campaign organizer, about SB 6105 before it was made into law.
SAW successfully lobbied for previous legislation that instructed strip clubs to have concealed panic buttons and to hold a list of banned customers. Zack-Wu explained that workers have dealt with decades of discriminatory practices due to the stigma surrounding their means of employment, which fueled efforts to criminalize stripping. According to Zack-Wu, the lack of infrastructure created an unsafe and inequitable work environment that led many strippers to feel unsupported in reporting incidents of assault by customers.
Additionally, the absence of workplace policies for strippers has resulted in many of them being trafficked. The National Human Trafficking Hotline reported that 22% of victims were recruited by their employers. In an overwhelming number of reported cases, clubs used debt as a ploy to keep strippers bound to an exploitative network. Before both bills passed, strippers say they had to rely heavily on their peers to navigate the industry.
Lexy Bove has worked in the industry for eight years and is incredibly grateful for the camaraderie within her support network. Bove worked as a dancer in New Orleans and Oregon before arriving in Seattle, where she heard a running joke that if you can survive stripping here, you can survive anywhere. But that joke quickly became a chilling reality when Bove experienced the exploitative practices within her workplace.
Bove joined SAW in 2018 after being approached by two coworkers. Bove’s club was consistently charging her back rent — expensive house fees strippers are required to pay in order to continue working at a club — which soon became detrimental to her.
“I would have managers who would ask for extra rent when I was paying out already, and they would be like, ‘Give me an extra 20 or 40.’ Sometimes they would just pocket it for themselves,” Bove said. “I had to work a bunch of extra shifts [during that time] because I was so stressed out about being indebted to this club [because] they can cancel my contract at any time. I would be forced to go work at another club or maybe not even be able to get hired, because clubs talk.”
Bove was frustrated and tired of poor management at the club she worked at the time. Moving to Washington and having to fight for basic security during work was a debilitating shift from having agency in her work in both Oregon and Louisiana.
“Because there was no real oversight to this industry, it was so easy for managers and staff members to just take advantage of us in any big or small situation,” Bove said. “It’s dehumanizing in a lot of ways to feel like our experience as a worker in our job isn’t taken seriously by management, people in power and our government until recently.”
For other strippers, this behavior was enough to be pushed away from working in the industry entirely. Peach, a member of SAW who chose to use a pseudonym due to privacy concerns, worked in the industry for seven years, but predatory practices like back rent and poor working conditions heavily influenced her choice to find other means of employment.
Peach recalled a time when a customer refused to pay after she gave them a service. The customer went on to verbally harass Peach, and their friends circled and threatened her after Peach confronted the customer for their behavior. Peach said there were no security guards present to help her leave that situation; a waitress helped Peach remove the customers from the club.
She learned from other coworkers that the customer in question was a regular who had a history of harrassing other strippers after refusing to pay for services. The customer was still allowed to enter into the club because a block list didn’t exist and management wouldn’t listen to strippers who felt unsafe around them.
“I can’t come back to work here,” Peach said. “I felt that I could not return to dancing in Seattle until something more serious was done, and that was around the time I became more involved with SAW. If I want to continue dancing, I need to be putting all of my energy into making sure that some legislation passes so that I can dance in an environment that is safer and more equitable.”
Peach shared her experience at hearings with Washington Senate and House members as a way for legislators to understand how crucial SB 6105 was. She was also involved in giving legislators and their aides educational tours of how a club workspace operates. It was an important opportunity, she said, to create space for legislators to get their questions answered so they could be better informed.
A major goal for SAW and its members is to dispel the stigma surrounding stripping and the sex work industry. Bove said that because strip clubs were previously prohibited from selling alcohol, there has been a perception that strippers and their workplaces are immoral. She pointed out that banning a form of potential revenue for strip clubs has become a financial burden on strippers working in the state.
Peach agreed that decriminalizing ways in which a club can operate not only dispels the stigma surrounding the kind of work they do but also gives strippers more autonomy. During those tours with legislators, she and other strippers explained how a dancer could be charged with prostitution if they were to take a single step off stage while nude. SB 6105 would rescind a law that limits the proximity between a customer and stripper, whether or not they’re nude — as long as there is no sexual contact.
“Giving a dancer a fine or a mark on [their] record is not going to make them safer, and it’s not going to give them greater access to resources,” Peach said. “Criminalizing the normal conduct of a strip club also has the potential to push dancers out of being able to legally dance at strip clubs and push them to a worse situation. The reality is that many dancers are facing financial instability, and that’s why they’ve come to work in this industry, whether it be [because of] a disability or other forms of marginalization.
“These are not the people we want to criminalize. We want to make our workplace safe.”
Since the passing of SB 6105, Peach plans to return to stripping, since she now believes her workplace will advocate for her safety above all else. Bove expressed how much of her anxiety will be relieved knowing that security will be present and that she’ll be able to pay her bills with the money she’s earned every night.
The stripper bill of rights will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.
Marian Mohamed is the associate editor of Real Change. She oversees our weekly features. Contact her at [email protected].
Read more of the April 24–30, 2024 issue.