Strippers Sue Area Clubs Over Treatment
They bump and grind anywhere from six to 50 hours a week, but receive no health insurance, workers compensation benefits or overtime. Heck, they don’t even receive a minimum wage. So what’s an exotic dancer to do? Call her lawyer, of course.
Five strippers have joined forces in 12 separate class-action suits filed Dec. 8 in Superior Court in Los Angeles. They allege that 22 clubs, including the Deja Vu on Coldwater Canyon Avenue in North Hollywood, illegally classify them as independent contractors when they should be full-fledged employees. The women are demanding they be put on the payroll, so they’ll be entitled to benefits like other workers.
They are also demanding something beyond money: respect.
Defendant Deja Vu Inc., based in Lansing, Mich., owns at least 11 clubs in California, four in the Los Angeles area, according to lawyers for the strippers.
In their court action, the dancers paint a picture of a workplace in which the employers force them to pay an upfront fee classified as “rent”--anywhere from $50 to $120 a night--before they earn a dime. They also say that, in some instances, they are required to buy a drink before they are free to work, often around $10 a pop.
All earnings are in the form of tips they generate from customers, as they shimmy on stages or in private booths. That is split with the house, which typically takes 60%, according to the dancers.
Lead plaintiff Alicia Cadena also said managers at Deja Vu regularly walk into dancers’ dressing rooms, where there are cameras, or the women’s restroom, without knocking. The dancers are not bringing a sexual harassment claim against the clubs.
Said Cadena’s attorney, Ray Mandlekar: “The women don’t seem to get respect for their privacy. The attitude seems to be, ‘They take off their clothes, to hell with them.’ ”
Brad Shafer, Deja Vu’s Michigan-based attorney, defended the clubs. “Did you ever see a dressing room for runway models, for example? There are people in the back rooms. It’s the nature of the industry.”
“I don’t know how an exotic dancer who takes her clothes off would consider a dressing room a private room,” Shafer said.
The crux of the dancers’ lawsuit is that, although the clubs classify the dancers as freelancers, they are, in essence, employees, chiefly because of the amount of control management exerts over them. Unlike true independent contractors, who have the freedom to set their own work schedule, the dancers are told when and where to work by club management, according to Ron Dean, another Cadena lawyer.
The lawsuit alleges a violation of a section of the California Labor Code that gives employees the right to sue for back wages and overtime, and a section of the California Business and Professional Code that allows employees to sue for illegal, unfair or fraudulent business practices.
“‘What this case is about is an employer trying to call a cow a pig and it’s really a cow, no matter how many times you call it a pig,” Mandlekar said.
Deja Vu’s attorney, Shafer, said he had not yet seen a copy of the lawsuit. But he said the company will vigorously resist it.
“All these entertainers sign a very elaborate lease that specifically spells out the tenancy arrangement,” Shafer said. The contract features a clear disclaimer stating that they’re not employees, according to Shafer.
He said Cadena signed it. Cadena’s lawyers insist she never did.
Shafer said other dancers have made similar claims throughout the years, but they have been without merit. “These lawsuits are usually a scam for ex-dancers to get free money,” Shafer said.
“We will defend this to the hilt . . . and we will be victorious,” Shafer said.
In addition to being reclassified as employees, the exotic dancers are asking that they be reimbursed for the amounts they believe they should have been paid in the past three to four years, plus interest. The dancers are also asking for unspecified punitive damages.
“These women are being cheated out of their rights,” Mandlekar said.
Plaintiff Cadena, 29, a San Fernando Valley resident, said she’s been stripping at Deja Vu of North Hollywood, and other clubs, for five years to put herself through college. Her dancing career is temporary, she said, but stripping generates more income than she’d earn in a low-skilled job.
“Nowadays, even with a bachelor’s degree, it’s hard to make the kind of money we [the dancers] make,” Cadena said. She wouldn’t say how much that is. Dancers elsewhere who are union-covered employees say they make $15 to $28 an hour.
She’s now on a crusade to institute better working conditions at strip joints, Cadena said. “It’s time for someone to step forward. This is the slavery of the 1990s. For the longest time, I haven’t felt I’ve been getting the respect I deserve.”
Cadena’s activities come with a price. As of last Wednesday, a day after she filed the lawsuit, she’s out of work.
She said when she arrived at Deja Vu of North Hollywood, management presented her with a contract to acknowledge her status as a freelancer. She refused to sign.
Shafer denied that’s what happened, but he wouldn’t share Deja Vu’s version of the event. “That’s not exactly true,” was all Shafer would say.
Cadena’s attorneys said they are in contact with Deja Vu to try to persuade the club to reinstate her.
