A Cabinet paper on it explicitly refers to Fired Up Stilettos, a group working to improve the lives of strippers and sex workers in Aotearoa.
It said: “Commission guidance and mechanisms to clear collaborative activities or authorise arrangements are available but could be enhanced. For example, the advocacy group Fired Up Stilettos identified the high costs of obtaining authorisation from the commission as a barrier to it collectively bargaining to protect members’ rights.”
When strippers arrive at work and don’t know how much money they’re taking home at the end of the shift.
They don’t know whether they’ll make enough to cover rent that week, put food in the fridge, or fill their car with petrol.
That’s because their employer might decide to take a higher percentage of their wages than usual.
Workers might be fined for something inconsequential and have no way of rebutting.
If they feel unsafe at work, they’re told their health is their responsibility. That’s despite reporting the rip in the carpet, dodgy plumbing and exposed electrical wires to management.
They don’t have an HR department to go to for help and they’re unable to file a complaint with WorkSafe.
They can’t unionise, negotiate better terms or take the matter to the courts.
Fired Up Stilettos’ core team is made up of Wellington-based strippers, most of whom were fired from Calendar Girls Wellington in January 2023 following attempts at negotiation.
Its 169-page submission to the Petitions Committee offers a glimpse into their world, a detailed account of the deception, discrimination and stigma these workers face daily.
Dame Catherine Healy wrote of the group’s submission that if realised and translated into law, it “will have far-reaching, and positive implications for future generations of adult entertainment workers and sex workers in Aotearoa New Zealand”.
The group’s main objectives are:
- Giving workers the right to collectively bargain.
- Outlaw fines and bonds in adult entertainment.
- Setting a mandatory maximum that venues can take from a worker’s earnings.
Anecdotes are dotted throughout the submission’s pages of how adult entertainment venues profit from the various systems they use to extract commissions from the entertainers’ earnings.
A venue will extract an amount from an entertainer’s private bookings – anywhere from 40% to 60% of the sales.
FUS co-founder Margot Embargot told The Front Page “fines” or ”penalities”’ are taken from an entertainer’s weekly total earnings before the entertainer receives it.
“It depends on the club you work for. They’ve all got different fines lists.
“The worst one I think is the $500 for ‘rudeness to management’ plus forfeiture of 50% of your tips. There’s no criteria of what rudeness is or looks like, or when it’s reasonable or unreasonable,” she said.
Another example, found in a leaked contract from Calendar Girls states “inconvenience fees” include $100 for an “unkempt appearance”.
If you deem a customer’s behaviour as offensive or abusive, and you tell them so, they could complain to your manager, who sides with the patron and docks money off your pay for “being rude”.
If the sum of the fine is greater than the amount the entertainer has earned, they become indebted to the club and must return to work for free before they can continue to make money.
The group said adult entertainment workers also suffer prejudice and discrimination within institutions - including WorkSafe, the Criminal Court, the Commerce Commission, the Employment Relations Authority, and the Disputes Tribunal.
No clear reason was given by WorkSafe when it declined intervention or assigned an inspector concerning a complaint that detailed safety issues like uneven floor surfaces, black mould, unsanitary toilets and showers and a lack of security.
It said workers “have a responsibility to their own health and safety”.
It’s currently not possible for these workers to collectively bargain.
The Commerce Commission told The Front Page under the Commerce Act, certain agreements, conduct, and mergers are prohibited as they can lead to anti-competitive outcomes, like increased prices or lack of choice for customers.
“However, the law allows the commission to authorise anti-competitive agreements, conduct, and mergers in some cases where the public benefits outweigh the competitive harms.
“So, the commission may authorise an arrangement such as collective bargaining that could otherwise breach section 27 of the Commerce Act if, despite any potential detriment from the arrangement, the arrangement will nonetheless likely result in a benefit to the public.
“In recent times, we’ve granted authorisation to allow the New Zealand Tegel Growers Association Incorporated (TGA) to collectively negotiate on behalf of its members and the News Publishers’ Association of New Zealand Incorporated (NPA) to collectively negotiate with Meta and Google,” it said.
When it comes to sex workers’ contract terms, independent contractors are not covered by the Employment Relations Act 2000.
But, they are covered by protections from unfair contract terms under the Fair Trading Act.
An MBIE spokesperson said the act covers standard take-it-or-leave-it contracts up to a value of $250,000 over 12 months and includes a list of terms that can be considered unfair in some circumstances.
They point out that some of the terms in this list have similarities to terms commonly included in adult entertainer worker contacts, like penalty clauses.
“Other issues raised in the petition relating to working conditions in the adult entertainment industry are outside the scope of the Fair Trading Act.”
FUS also speaks of the stigma surrounding the industry that impedes workers’ access to justice.
“Stigma has a profound impact, not just on the way society views you and the kind of barriers you’re going to run into if people are viewing you through a stigmatised lens, but also on the way that you view yourself.
“For example, when I started stripping and I did actually tell my parents about it, I got into this mindset of having to defend the job and defend the club.
“So when I was at work I was thinking maybe we don’t have enough rights. Maybe this isn’t how a workplace should be ... It’s much harder to have those thoughts and do anything about them because you’ve already backed yourself into a corner in a way by having to defend the job,” Embargot said.
A spokesperson for Bayly told The Front Page: “The minister intends to review the Fair Trading Act next year.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more about how the adult entertainment industry is operating and what should be done to protect workers.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
