‘Long overdue’: National and Labour MPs respond to petition for law changes to protect adult entertainers

Thursday, 25 July 2024

ANALYSIS: National and Labour MPs sounded notes support for adult entertainers petitioning for meaningful law changes to protect them from abuse from exploitative strip clubs.

“There’s a gap in protection for these workers,” said Labour’s Helen White after representatives from Fired Up Silettos told MPs on the education and workforce select committee about rampant exploitation and cartel abuses in the adult entertainment industry.

On Wednesday, Laura Phillips and Vixen Temple from Fired Up Stilettos outlined what amounted to an almost complete absence of labour regulation and law enforcement in the adult entertainment industry.

They are calling for law change to give adult entertainers collective bargaining, and to outlaw practices in the industry that allow club-owners to impose unreasonable and arbitrary “fines” on entertainers.

“Probably long overdue, the direction you are going in,” said National MP Grant McCallum, after Phillips and Temple finished their presentation.

Support was also forthcoming from Green MP Ricardo Menéndez-March.

How is abuse happening?

Phillips and Temple painted a picture of an industry in which entertainers performed at clubs as “independent contractors”.

But they have no ability to negotiate on the contracts the clubs use. These are loaded with manifestly unfair clauses, including the power to impose “fines” on performers, though MPs heard club owners routinely ignore parts of their own contracts, when it suits them.

If performers complain, they could be “blackballed” from clubs, which MPs heard operated an informal cartel to frighten performers into silence and acquiescence.

“There is no competition in our industry. It’s whatever the venue owners decide,” Phillips said.

Why aren’t the authorities acting?

The two women said they had complained to the Commerce Commission about unfair contract terms, which are banned by the Fair Trading Act. Only the commission can challenge unfair contract terms in court. It chose not to take a case, the women said.

A complaint had also been taken to Worksafe about the lack of security to protect entertainers in clubs, and unsafe stages and carpeting that had to be navigated in high heels. Because they are “independent contractors”, Worksafe told them they were responsible for their own health and safety, MPs heard.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment told MPs independent contractors were largely outside of the labour laws it enforced to protect workers.

Why didn’t the women complain to the commission about the cartel behaviour, which the commission is also supposed to police?

“There’s only so many times you can hear ‘no’, before you give up,” Phillips says.

What does Fired up Stilettos want?

It wants industry-specific legislation and regulation, backed up by meaningful enforcement.

It’s an open secret in New Zealand, that many exploited workers, like low-paid cleaners, are hired as “contractors” to deny them many legal protections, and things like paid holidays, and KiwiSaver contributions.

But if Fired Up Stilettos asked for law changes to protect all contractors, not just in the adult entertainment industry, they would be asking MPs for a very big thing.

Limiting their calls for change to their own industry, and arguing a special case because of the vulnerability of adult entertainers in a society that discriminates against them, makes sense in that context.

“There’s good reason to regulate specifically for our industry,” Phillips said.

But they have made a strong point with the phrase: “Strippers’ rights are workers’ rights”.

Once again ‘restraint of trade clauses’ raise their ugly heads

There is growing disquiet about workers and contractors like hairdressers, childcare workers and baristas being forced to accept restraint of trade clauses in their contracts, banning them from working in the same role at another business.

Employers use it to stifle competition to keep wages low, Parliament heard late last year.

It’s a tactic adult entertainment venues use as well, Fired Up Stilettos said, under questioning from White.

Anti-discrimination laws need changing

“Aotearoa used to be somewhere that was looked to around the world for upholding the rights of sex workers,” said Philips.

No longer, she said.

States in Australia and the US have anti-discrimination laws specifically outlawing discrimination against adult entertainers in employment and in the provision of services like banking and accommodation.

“These protections also prohibit financial discrimination so that workers cannot be denied mortgages, or access to financial services from banks. Banks in Aotearoa are more likely to freeze our accounts than provide tailored services with our businesses in mind,” she said.

This fear of being discriminated against provided even more power to clubs, Phillips said.

“As an undergrad student, I relied on my strip club manager to lie for me on housing applications in order to have a roof over my head.

“A lot of managers will do this because we have no other options to prove we can pay rent, but this results in a relationship of dependency,” she said.

“Dependency feeds the power imbalance between venues and workers, and leaves us vulnerable to mistreatment in the workplace.”

What are the chances of Fired Up Stilettos winning?

They are winning the moral battle, if the reaction of MPs on the select committee is anything to go by.

“We represent a workforce dominated by women and gender minorities who are routinely ostracised, our skills devalued, our voices silenced, our stories untold,” Temple said.

Some of the treatment entertainers were subjected to would be considered barbaric in an industry in which women and gender minorities, she said.

“This could happen to someone you love, and if you think that is not likely, I want to remind you that I am my mother’s daughter. We are parents, we are siblings, we are part of society, but most importantly we are human beings,” she said.

What happens next?

The select committee must write a report on Fired Up Stilettos’ petition.

It could recommend the Government pass laws to protect adult entertainers.

Or, it could find a way of not doing that.

A representative from MBIE told MPs that issues raised in the petition could be included in a review planned by Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly into the failed Fair Trading Act ban on unfair contract terms.

However, it sounded like there are MPs who will not let this die, and there is talk of a private members’ bill that could be tabled soon.

If that bill was drawn in the ballot, Parliament would have to debate it.