Sex Workers of the World Uniting for their Common Good
Across the western world, sex workers, ranging from prostitutes, exotic
dancers, porn models and sex chatline workers, have begun to unionise
themselves in order to gain the rights that ordinary workers have elsewhere, a
new book finds.
Sex Worker Union Organising – an international study by Professor Gregor Gall
of the University of Hertfordshire Business School studies developments in
Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the
United States.
The book finds that the most significant unionisation projects concerning
prostitutes have taken place in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands while
the most significant unionisation projects concerning exotic dancers (e.g.,
lap-dancers) have taken place in Australia, Britain and the United States. In
the Netherlands, there is collective bargaining for prostitutes through the
Red Thread union while in Australia, the Striptease Artists of Australia has
recently won an industry-wide award for wages and conditions from the
Australia Industrial Relations Commission for lap dancers. In Britain, the GMB
union has between 2,000-3,000 sex worker members and several lap dancing clubs
have been granted union recognition.
Professor Gall commented: “The first steps towards unionisation of sex workers
have come from sex workers themselves. This is no mean feat given the
stigmatisation and marginalisation attached to sex work and sex workers. Part
of this struggle for workers’ rights has seen sex workers themselves develop
an analysis that sex work is work and that sex workers are workers. Again,
this is a considerable achievement.
“Although most of these unionisation projects are in their infancy and
although they still remain fragile, we may yet come to look back on them as an
important turning point in trade unionism developing a purchase for workers in
the burgeoning private service sector and the leisure industry in particular.
The decline in overall membership compels that unions need to take the
prospect of sex worker unionisation more seriously.”
July 2006
> > home page > >