False Self‐Employment, Autonomy and Regulating for Decent Work: Improving Working Conditions in the UK Stripping Industry

Abstract

A large-scale study of working conditions in UK-based strip dancing clubs reveals that dancers are against de facto self-employment as it is defined and practised by management, but in favour of de jure self-employment that ensures sufficient levels of autonomy and control in the workplace. While dancers could potentially seek 'worker' or 'employee' status within the existing legal framework, their strong identification with the label 'self-employed' and their desire for autonomy will likely inhibit these labour rights claims. We propose an alternative avenue for improving dancers' working conditions, whereby selfemployed dancers articulate their grievances as a demand for decent work, pursued through licensing agreements between clubs and local authorities and facilitated by collective organization.

Workers of the Internet unite? Online freelancer organisation among remote gig economy workers in six Asian and African countries

“…These identities were also in part ‘mediated by common experiences and a discourse rooted in the nature of the labour process’ (Saundry et al ., : 271). Moreover, the importance of autonomy to our informants’ freelancer identities has parallels with findings on other self‐employed workers, such as those in the UK lap dance industry, who have been found to strongly identify with the potential autonomy implied by de jure self‐employment (Cruz et al ., ). Cruz et al .…”

“…Cruz et al . () argue that identification with being self‐employed at the expense of seeing oneself as a ‘worker’ or ‘employee’ is likely to act as a barrier to improving labour conditions. This is because it makes it unlikely that workers will press for legal recognition of worker or employee status and the rights that these statuses confer.…”

Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

“…Workers in brothels and erotic dance venues are nominally self-employed and experience high levels of financial extraction, including house fees, commission, fines, and "tip outs" to their house mum or security (Cruz 2013;O'Connell Davidson 1998, 2014bHardy and Sanders 2014;Cruz et al 2017). The capitalist buys her labour power plus the means of production, so rents a building, installs poles and various payment and security technologies, and the dancer produces the service.…”

“…This is done by setting the price of commodity service, stipulating multiple levels of financial extraction for each dance, introducing competition in the production process, and extending the working day, all of which will leave him with greater value than what he has put into the process. These practices are used across the sexual labour market, including prostitution (regardless of its legality) and erotic dance (Cruz 2013;O'Connell Davidson 1998Hardy and Sanders 2012;Cruz et al 2017). Female migrant workers therefore provide 'employers' with cheap, unprotected, and dependent labour power, which can be disciplined and expelled as and when deemed necessary.…”

“…Migrant sex workers who work in managed environments experience 'employment precarity' (Fudge 2013, 99); the dominant employment relation is false selfemployment, and so workers have no certainty of employment, little control over the labour process, no regulatory protection, and, while wages can be adequate there is no certainty that a debt relationship between the worker and management will not emerge (Cruz 2013;Cruz et al 2017). Unless migrant sex workers register as self-employed they will not be able to access many social welfare protections that depend on being in paid employment.…”