The strippers who have worked at Star Garden describe it as a Lynchian dive bar full of personality and dancer camaraderie. They say that's why they're willing to fight so hard for better working conditions there.
They allege that security fails to intervene when belligerent customers threaten and physically assault dancers, that dancers are filmed without consent and that arbitrary rules and quotas govern their job security. After two dancers asked management to take basic measures to address their safety concerns, the dancers say, they were fired in retaliation. Those firings were the final push that drove the group of Star Garden dancers to take the first leap in an effort to unionize.
Dancers allege that management tried to foster a competitive environment and discourage friendships among them. But they felt it was essential to stick up for one another in the face of unsafe working conditions. They're not the first group of strippers to take the union path. The Star Garden dancers take direct inspiration from a unionization effort 25 years ago led by strippers at the Lusty Lady, a defunct peep show in San Francisco that unionized when the strippers joined the Service Employees International Union.
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced Star Garden to close in 2020, Reagan, like many workers, took her business online. She and her fellow dancers started hosting virtual shows. Reagan said she was fired after standing up for herself to a manager who was joking about a customer killing her.Reagan has been stripping for over a decade. For her, it hasn't been difficult to draw a separation between her private and public-performer lives. That distinction is now becoming muddier, however, as her public profile as an activist melds with her performer persona in the spotlight of the strike.
"They filled a lot of roles and cut a lot of corners doing that," Wicked said."And in cutting so many corners, they made us less safe.""You could tell security, 'This guy just tried to shove his finger in me,' and you'd be met with a blank stare," Wicked said."That happened to me multiple times." "We made it five months, which in labor terms is colossal," she said in August."It's a very long time to continue picketing and continue staying strong on these lines."Selena said understanding the power of legal support and representation during the dancers' union drive has deeply impacted her. She recently changed her major and now wants to become a lawyer. Here, she counts money from a stripper co-op show at The Federal, a nightclub in North Hollywood.
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