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How The Road To Unionizing Star Garden Actually Started At A Different Strip Club
Patrons wait in line to enter the Star Garden strip club in North Hollywood on opening night after unionization.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Some dancers previously had their sights on unionizing a different L.A. strip club: Jumbo’s Clown Room. But then the pandemic hit.
Topline:
Episode 3 of Imperfect Paradise: Strippers Union peels back another layer of the Star Garden dancers’ journey toward unionization, uncovering that several dancers had their sights set on unionizing a strip club before they ever came to Star Garden. LAist producer and the series’ lead reporter Emma Alabaster takes you from the negotiations that finally brought management and dancers to a settlement after a 15-month-long strike, to the night Star Garden reopened in August 2023 as the only unionized strip club in the country.
Secret Plots: Star Garden dancers Reagan and Velveeta (stage names) said they previously had their sights on unionizing a different L.A. strip club: Jumbo’s Clown Room. They said they were working with attorney Jordan Palmer, from the advocacy group Strippers United, when the pandemic ended that unionization effort.
When Reagan and Velveeta were reunited at Star Garden and were unhappy with working conditions, they got back in touch with Palmer for guidance on organizing.
“I started thinking about how the dancers all had each other's back,” said Reagan. “So I told Jordan, we might wanna look at Star Garden.”
The unionizing playbook: Palmer laid out the steps toward unionization, starting with the dancers’ initial petition asking for safety measures. Presenting the petition created an organizing action, which meant the workers would be protected from a mass firing. The dancers also filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These actions allowed them to discuss issues at the strip club with the media without it being defamation.
What else is in the episode? Star Garden’s management and the dancers meet to negotiate their demands during an all-night sushi dinner, pre-empting the dancer’s NLRB hearing. We also catch up with the Star Garden dancers to discuss contract negotiations and go inside the North Hollywood strip club on reopening weekend.
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How can I listen? Here's Part 3 of Imperfect Paradise: Strippers Union:
Part 3: The Star Garden Topless Dive Bar reopens as a union strip club, but the fight doesn’t end there. What happens after the victory? LAist Producer Emma Alabaster has the story.
New episodes of Imperfect Paradise: Strippers Union publish on Wednesdays wherever you get your podcasts, on LAist.com, and on broadcast at LAist 89.3 the following Sunday.
Additional resources that informed our reporting on the podcast:
- Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex (in particular, the essay White Supremacy in Organizing by Domino Rey)
- Yes, A Stripper Podcast
- Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry by Siobhan Brooks
- Tits and Sass: Service Journalism by and for Sex Workers
- Taking the Boom Out of the Boom-Boom Room: Why Are Strip Clubs Banning Rap? By Susan Elizabeth Shepherd
- I Started Portland’s Stripper Strike—We Still Have Serious Work to Do by Cat Hollis
- What It Was Like to Work at the Lusty Lady, a Unionized Strip Club by Lily Burana
- Bare Minimum: Stripping Pay for Independent Contractors in the Share Economy By Michael H. LeRoy
- Stripper TikTok by cultmaker on AB5
- The Gig Law Causing Chaos in California Strip Clubs by Morgan Meaker
- The Los Angeles Sex Work State of the Union By Courtney Kocak
- An Inside Look At The NYC Stripper Strike by Antonia Crane
- ACLU on CA sex workers’ rights
- Strippers Are Doing It for Themselves: An industry organizes against decades of exploitation By Valeriya Safronova
- California’s New Gig Economy Law is Strengthening a Stripper-Led Labor Movement by Aída Chávez
- IBIS World Strip Club Industry Analysis
- Why Are Strippers More Heavily Vetted Than Uber Drivers? By Susan Elizabeth Shepherd
- How strippers hoping to unionize in LA adds to the history of organizing in the U.S. NPR's Juana Summers speaks with professor Siobhan Brooks
- Live Nude Girls Unite! Film by Vicky Funari and Julia Query
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