For many dancers who work at strip clubs, it’s the norm to pay the club a fee to work there, to work without an hourly wage, and to work beyond 40 hours a week without overtime.
Now, in lawsuits filed in Austin and across the country, women are calling them out on it.
“A lot of these performers are sometimes in difficult economic situations, and they don’t have a lot of bargaining power,” said Jarrett Ellzey, the Houston-based attorney who is representing people who are current or former performers at strip clubs throughout Texas. “And this is the culture — even some of the club owners and managers are surprised by this (information). They think it’s OK, because it’s been going on for so long.”
The lawsuits are targeting three Austin clubs — The Yellow Rose, Perfect 10 and Palazio — and similar lawsuits have been filed against roughly 60 strip clubs throughout Texas in federal court, alleging that the businesses violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.
These clubs have never paid these women “any amount as wages whatsoever,” and have instead required them to pay the clubs “for the privilege of working,” the lawsuits say.
The women did not file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission because doing so is not a prerequisite for their causes of action, their attorney said.
The women signed documents agreeing to be independent contractors rather than employees, records show. However, Ellzey said the club treated them like employees — requiring them to work a certain shift, setting prices for dances and charging the women late fees if they did not arrive on time.
In the eyes of labor laws, that makes them employees, Ellzey said.
“The law looks to the conduct of the club … not the documents cooked up by the clubs,” Ellzey said. “The documents have no real legal significance.”
Brian Bishop, the attorney representing Perfect 10 in northern Travis County, said it is common for performers at strip clubs to choose to be independent contractors over employees because it boosts their income.
One of the women pursuing the lawsuit “made twice as much being an independent contractor, and she was able to work whenever she wanted to,” Bishop said.
After the lawsuit was filed against Perfect 10, the club sent the woman a check for $700, which represented the wages she would have made as an employee, Bishop said. She rejected the check and continued to pursue the lawsuit, he said.
The purpose of the check was “to avoid the expenses of having to defend a protracted lawsuit and, as a practical matter, to show how frivolous what she’s suing for is,” Bishop said.
Different lawsuits are suing for different amounts. The lawsuit against the Yellow Rose, which was brought forth by four different women, is seeking compensatory damages of at least $200,000.
Bishop said the independent contractor agreements gave performers the opportunity to avoid turning over their tips to the club. However, Ellzey said that, despite this, the club often required the performers to divide their tips among other employees such as the DJ, the security guard and management.
“The performers are typically younger,” Ellzey said. “They go to work in these clubs, and the money they’re making on stage is sometimes really surprising. I think when an older club owner or a manager with apparent authority says, ’This is what you have to do. This is what everyone does. You need to split your tips, you need to pay house fees,’ then a younger, more vulnerable dancer is just going to believe them.”
Similar suits in different states have previously ended in settlements for the dancers.
The owners of four Houston adult entertainment clubs paid over $1 million to settle a federal labor lawsuit filed against them by some of their dancers, who said the clubs unfairly and incorrectly categorized them as independent contractors.
A Wisconsin strip club agreed in 2018 to pay $400,000 to settle dancers’ claims that they had to share tips and weren’t paid minimum wage or overtime.
What these clubs do “is on par with forcing young women to work all night long for tips and then making them pay a percentage of that as a house fee,” Ellzey said. “I just think it’s an un-American practice to make someone pay to work — in addition to it being illegal.”
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