Solidarity under red lights as lap-dancers throw off their chains

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The Independent
By John Hiscock in Los Angeles
21 December 2004


In the city synonymous with sexual freedom, San Francisco's strippers are using labour laws to combat exploitative club owners they claim are driving more and more girls to prostitution.

Business is booming in the back rooms and private booths of the city's sex trade, but a district attorney's decision this year not to prosecute lap-dancers for soliciting in strip clubs has prompted girls to turn for support to the same city and police officials they have previously hidden from.

About 200 strippers have complained to the California Labour Commission that the fees the clubs charge strippers are exorbitant. Some say these fees, coupled with the growing popularity of private booths, have compelled strippers to turn to prostitution, with encouragement - tacit or direct - from management. They also say the secluded booths provide cover for sexual assaults.

Daisy Anarchy, who has formed a union-backed organisation, Sex Workers Organised for Labour, Human and Civil Rights, says many dancers must prostitute themselves to make the $150 (£70) to $500 in fees they have to pay the club owners each shift.

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