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from www.mydesert.com – A stripper is hoping to change the industry’s ways by filing a lawsuit against her former workplace.
Quansa Thompson accuses management at The House, a stripclub located in the District of Columbia, of violating the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
“If they’re running an establishment that exploits women, they’re going to have the same mindset,” said Quansa Thompson. “I didn’t even know I was getting ripped off until I started doing research to form a union.”
Thompson said she started researching how to form a union online when she got fed up with not having any job protection.
“When you start to accumulate a certain amount of income, your home life becomes accustomed to the income you’re making,” she explained. “At any given second, if management wants to let you go, they can let you go. I just felt like that wasn’t stable.”
Ironically, Thompson said she was let go because during her research she discovered the federal labor laws guaranteed her the right to be paid wages.
“In our country, employees get paid by the employer and in this case they got it the other way around,” explains Thompson’s attorney Philip Zipin.
Zipin points to a contract dancers sign when they are hired by The House. On paper, they’re technically considered independent contractors. Yet, he said the club’s rules prohibit them from setting their own hours or even calling in sick.
“The reality is, they’re employees,” he said. “They show up everyday, they dance their shifts and they get told what shifts they work. They get fined if they miss a shift. They get fined if they’re late. They have to pay the DJ and the bartender.”
Thompson said she had to pay roughly $60 to the club every night she worked. If she was late for her shift, she was fined $10 and if she called in sick, she was fined $80.
The owner of the club, Darrell Allen, called the case “interesting” but said he could not answer whether he considers his dancers employees or independent contractors. He had no further comment.
“It is a systematic practice in the industry and we’ve seen cases around the country,” said Zipin. “We’ve been contacted by some dancers from other club and what I’m seeing is this is the way the industry treats their dancers.”
Thompson is already getting backlash from her former co-workers.
“A lot of the other dancers are upset about what I’m doing,” she explained. “I guess they don’t see the future. I’m just trying to have it where girls could still have a place to come to work and it will function normally.
“You can have paychecks. You can get pay stubs. You can file your taxes, You can get a home. You can get a car, things that help make you a productive citizen. You can have Social Security. You can’t do this forever.”