Strippers sue metro Phoenix clubs over labor practices

About 120 exotic dancers are suing Christie’s Cabaret, a Valley strip club, for what the performers claim are unfair labor practices, in what has become a growing and lucrative area of legal practice around the country.

Days before the most recent hearing in the Christie’s case this month, about 4,000 dancers in Florida won a $6 million settlement in an almost identical case.

Houston-based law firm Kennedy Hodges brought both cases. The company also won a similar case in Dallas, has ongoing cases in North Carolina and Texas, and its attorneys have sued the Alaska Bush Co. and Bliss Show Club in Phoenix, said Beatriz Sosa- Morris, the attorney representing the Christie’s dancers.

Other firms have filed similar cases around the country in recent months.

In the Valley, Christie’s dancers have banded together in a class-action labor-rights lawsuit in federal court, claiming that since 2011, clubs in Phoenix and Tempe and their corporate owners have illegally classified them as independent contractors, rather than employees. The suit, filed in May 2014, seeks to recover overtime pay and unpaid hourly minimum-wage earnings.

MONTINI: Strippers of the world, unite! Seriously

Initially dancers also sued the Christie’s in Glendale as well as sister clubs in Ohio and North Carolina. A federal judge ruled against hearing the action against out-of-state clubs, and attorneys are working to include Glendale dancers in the lawsuit.

Lawyers for Christie’s countered in U.S. District Court filings that the clubs have no record of some of the women ever working there. Lawyers also argued that the women mistakenly sued some wrong corporate entities and that they entered agreements to dance, knowing they were not employees.

Records filed in court show that dancers are required to sign an “Independent Contractor Agreement,” which states “Company and contractor intend to create an independent relationship,” and were not entering a relationship as employer and employee. In essence, the dancers were paying fees to lease the stage, DJ, lighting and venue in exchange for being allowed to keep their tips.

The dancers, and their attorney Sosa-Morris, describe a workplace where the dancers are routinely exploited and strict rules govern almost every aspect of their work shifts.

“These clubs will just take, take, take from the dancers,” Sosa-Morris said. “These dancers are a lot of times abused by the system and just tossed into the sex industry.”

La’Shaunta Cooper, in a written statement in court, said that she worked at the Tempe club for two years and that “the ultimate factors which control how much money we can make at Christie’s Cabaret are largely out of our control.”

Cooper said in addition to required tips to the DJ, “house mom,” bouncers and managers, she had to pay a set house fee as well as any fines for arriving late, leaving early or violating rules.

Those rules are set forth in a seven-page document filed in court. Examples include: “no gum,” “no negativity” and, “Don’t talk about your personal problems to a customer. They are there to forget theirs.”

Generally, women are encouraged to dress and act in a way as to project a “classy” image and are discouraged from overtly sexual, lewd or trashy costumes or acts, according to the document.

Sosa-Morris said she’s heard stories of some dancers owing more money than they make in a shift and having to work off debt or visit the clubs’ ATMs to have enough for another fee at the end of their shift.

Christie’s lawyers declined comment for this story, but the club maintains in court records that it has no control over the dancers, who simply lease out the space.

The area of law is nothing new.

Exotic dancers began winning similar cases 20 years ago.

Still, Sosa- Morris said, the policies at Christie’s have been mirrored at strip clubs across the country for years. What’s changed, she said, is “the dancers are becoming more aware of their rights.”

Nor is the treatment of independent contractors in labor law unique to strips clubs. Similar arrangements exist with cab drivers, delivery jobs and the trucking industry, as well as in some heavy-construction industries in which skilled workers, such as oil-field workers and welders, move from place to place to follow the work. Employers don’t pay overtime, benefits or taxes to independent contractors.

Strip-club managers insist the dancers are not employees and are free to work as they please as long as they follow the rules.

The case is still in its early stages. Legal teams are gathering evidence and, in pretrial motions and countermotions, trying to expand or narrow the size of the plaintiff class.

Rulings are expected near the end of the year with the case, if there is no settlement, unlikely to get before a jury before spring 2016.