A group of strip club dancers in New Zealand is taking its industrial relations fight to parliament, pushing for reform that has the potential to improve conditions for all gig workers across the country.

Just like Uber delivery drivers and extras on a movie set, New Zealand strip club dancers are employed as independent contractors.

That is supposed to afford them the right to set their rates and pick and choose the type of work they are willing to do.

But in the shadowy world of adult entertainment, club owners make the rules and they are allegedly treating their female workforce as if they are employees who can be told what to do, how to behave and what their work is worth.

Now, a group of Wellington strippers called Fired Up Stilettos is moving a dispute with their former employer out of the club’s backroom and onto the streets of the nation’s capital, bringing to light the fact their legal work often does not enjoy legal protection.

They want safeguards against predatory employers and they want the right to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions.

As well as improving the lives of their fellow strippers, the Fired Up Stilettos’ fight could do two things.

This battle could change the way gig workers are treated across Aotearoa while also forging a new global standard for the sex work industry — something New Zealand has done before.

The problematic contracts

Fired Up Stilettos is a group of 19 strip club dancers who decided to get together and ask for better conditions; they were all swiftly fired and informed via Facebook that they no longer had a job.

Instead of going quietly, the group of women formed a collective and started to speak openly about the realities of working as a stripper — these women are used to being seen and not heard, but right now they have something to say.

The Fired Up Stilettos want to talk about the part of their job that is perhaps least likely to get attention — pay rates, employment status and the regulation of the adult entertainment industry.

Ginger first worked in a strip club at the age of 20 and now she is part of the Fired Up Stilettos movement. She has a communications degree and a real knack for running a campaign.

What many customers of New Zealand strip clubs may not know is that the share of the prices they pay that actually goes to the women doing the work has been steadily decreasing.

And the dancers are forced to pay a bond to the club and then risk fines just for doing their job.

“There was already dissatisfaction with how they were treating us in relation to our independent contractor status and then they got really pushy about these new contracts,” she said.

“The customer-facing prices have increased, in some cases by hundreds of dollars, and the percentage that went to us has gone down.”

When she was a dancer, Ginger was fined by her employer for breaching some of the rules in her contract, meaning her pay was docked at their discretion.

Dancers are fined for all kinds of things, including being rude, accepting a drink from a patron or loitering in the change rooms.

These terms and conditions are spelt out in the so-called contracts between the dancers and club owners, and employment lawyers say they are wildly problematic.

“They’re really quite draconian fines. And in some instances, [it’s] quite shocking to see just what they’re being fined,” Catherine Stewart, an Auckland-based barrister who specialises in employment law, said. 

“I think what concerns me most is that the fines are determined mainly at the discretion of the bosses, so for example, rudeness to patrons or management.

“It opens a can of worms to say that the worker can be fined for being rude to a customer or management because it’s a highly subjective question whether someone’s rude or not, particularly in this industry.”

In one example, the fine for being rude is $500 and 50 per cent of their tips.

Fired Up Stilettos launched a parliamentary petition, which closes next month. It currently has 5,600 signatures. 

This week, the group will again protest on the grounds of New Zealand’s parliament and government buildings in Wellington and they are inviting all gig workers to join the fight. 

Part of the challenge is that although the Fired Up Stilettos are independent contractors and do not want to be full-time employees, they are only working for one club at a time and are often held to non-compete clauses. 

That means they become more of what’s referred to as a “dependent contractor”, and that they might not fit neatly within either the contractor or employee definition. 

In a case involving four Uber drivers, a New Zealand court found they were employees.

The Ardern government sought to deal with the issue, and reform was on the table that might have helped the country’s 150,000 contract workers to access employee conditions such as holiday and sick pay, and the right to take up personal grievances with their employer. 

But Prime Minister Chris Hipkins shelved that reform not long after coming into office. 

“The Uber Employment Court ruling in New Zealand has significant implications on the legal definition of a contractor, so rather than pushing ahead with our proposed consultation on changes based on the report the Government has put our work on hold until there is an outcome from the current case,” NZ’s minister for workplace relations and safety Michael Wood told the ABC. 

For the Stilettos though, the nature of their work means they need to have absolute control over it and so remaining as contractors is paramount — they just want the relationship between them and the club owners to be a fair one. 

Their petition asks the House of Representatives to “establish the right of adult entertainment workers to bargain collectively while maintaining independent contractor status, outlaw all fines and bonds between employers and contractors, and establish a nationwide mandatory maximum of 20 per cent that an employer can take from a contractor’s profits”.

Remaining as contractors while also having the right to bargain collectively is a big legal ask, but it has been done before, thanks to one of the biggest Hollywood productions ever filmed in the land of the long white cloud. 

The Hobbit Law 

Getting right into the nuts and bolts of New Zealand employment law, you will find a section called Section Six and it is very relevant to the Fired Up Stilettos. 

The section says that no matter what the worker or the business calls the relationship, in a legal sense, it is ultimately a court that will decide if the arrangement is that of a contractor or employee. 

That’s why legally Uber cannot decide the status of its drivers, a court has to do that. 

But a law referred to as “The Hobbit Law” means workers who fall “within the definition of a screen production worker” are exempt from that rule around determination. 

“Unlike everyone else, they are able to put on their contract that they think they’re an employee, or conversely, they think [they’re an] independent contractor and the court won’t interfere with it,” Ms Stewart said. 

“And they also have clauses in that new legislation, which says that screen production workers must have mandatory terms about contract termination, protection from bullying, discrimination, harassment, and there must be a duty of good faith, which requires the parties not to mislead or deceive one another and they can bargain collectively.” 

Screen production workers were originally carved out in New Zealand employment legislation when a dispute over the production of The Hobbit series erupted ahead of filming getting underway in 2010.

At the time, the law was said to be designed to keep Warner Bros happy and  come at a cost to New Zealand workers because it did not allow conditions such as collective bargaining, but it does now. 

In 2019, the original Hobbit Law was amended and now screen production workers enjoy a distinct status in New Zealand law, where they can fight for better conditions while also being independent contractors. 

“So you have a hybrid situation here and those clauses are more indicative of an employment relationship — they’re giving some of those protections that employees have without necessarily making them employees,” Ms Stewart said.

Ginger said: “That’s pretty much what we want, but for everyone.” 

“We just want that ability to negotiate, and a lot of the things that The Hobbit Law has given [to screen production workers] to be given to all independent contractors.”  

‘The NZ model’

This will be a mighty battle for the Fired Up Stilettos and they feel as if “the world is watching”. 

Aotearoa was the first country to decriminalise sex work — and that approach is referred to as “The New Zealand model”.

“Historically, [New Zealand] sets a lot of precedents for the rights of sex workers, and this looks like another ripe opportunity for that to happen,” Ginger said.  

In Oregon in the United States, Cat Hollis was the lead organiser at the Portland stripper strike and is now advising the Fired Up Stilettos. 

She believes the New Zealand group has already set a new standard for how to fight for rights in this industry.

“I think what is really important about the model New Zealand is setting is that there is a difference between legalisation and decriminalisation,” she said. 

“It gave a contrast to the Nordic model which targets the consumers of sex work and inherently makes it more dangerous … because if your clients are criminalised, your clients are going to want to go underground.”

In Australia, Queensland is the latest state to move towards decriminalisation. 

In Germany, Edie from the Berlin Strippers Collective said, while the New Zealand model was not perfect, it was considered a leader in the familiar fight so many dancers were having. 

“Right now, even though we work in another country, we are experiencing similar exploitative practices, so we can relate to them,” she said.  

“It’s important to create visibility for these actions because hopefully other dancers from other countries will see that and decide to start similar actions.”

The Fired Up Stilettos’ fight is also happening as some strip club collectives around the world are pushing towards unionisation.

A year ago in California, a group of dancers from the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood went on strike. 

Two weeks ago, they won the right to unionise. 

Fired Up Stilettos member Eve said ultimately, it was physically and emotionally laborious work and all the collective was asking for was the right to do it safely and in a fair employment relationship. 

“We’re the ones putting ourselves on the line doing the work,” she said.