Sacked strippers to appeal employment case
Two former strippers plan to appeal a decision that they were not unjustifiably dismissed from strip club Calendar Girls.
The women were independent contractors, not employees, and could not pursue a personal grievance against the Christchurch club’s owning company Casino Bar Ltd, the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has determined.
Their complaint exposed a strict set of rules applied to the dancers, controlling everything from when they removed clothing during a dance, to how they interacted with patrons and management – and an extensive fines system for breaches.
Jessica Clifford, 23, said yesterday she and Tineill Hamiltonredmond would ‘‘100 per cent’’ appeal the decision because they could not afford the costs, which are reserved at this stage.
She did not regret going public with her claim in May but said the following months had been difficult. Harsh comments online had badly affected her: ‘‘I don’t leave the house any more; I have the worst anxiety.
‘‘At the end of the day, it’s a position me and Tineill put ourselves into but you go into it with the mindset that it’s going to be OK and I’m prepared ... I hate how little care people can have [towards others].
‘We don’t care about the money side of things at the moment. We care about what we have had to go through.’’
Clifford and Hamiltonredmond, who were flatmates while working at Calendar Girls, failed to show up for a shift last September after an attempted break-in at their Christchurch home. In November, James Samson, who had a financial stake in Calendar Girls, docked Clifford’s pay and told her she ‘‘should not return to work as she had been ‘fired’ the previous night’’, the authority’s decision said. Hamilton-redmond was also taken off the club’s roster and later resigned, believing she was owed pay.
Samson said the judgment ‘‘was always going to come out in our favour’’, and that the women may have been misled into thinking the club was ‘‘an easy target’’.
Calendar Girls general manager Scott Mccormick declined to comment.
‘‘Our girls are well looked after, and our contractors and staff, but you can’t keep all the people happy all the time,’’ Samson said.
Clifford and Hamiltonredmond said they were not given contracts when they started in January. However, they did receive a ‘‘profit share arrangement’’ document detailing the club’s policies and procedures. They were not required to sign it.
That document was ‘‘not a full contract’’ but stated that dancers were independent contractors, the ERA found.
It also detailed Calendar Girls’ fines system: breaches of its rules were penalised with fines, ranging from $50 for missing a spot on stage to $2500 for dancing for a competitor or meeting a client outside of work.
Dancers who reported on other women for the latter two breaches were paid $500.
Lateness incurred a $100 fine, intoxication cost $75, there was a $200 fine and a 50 per cent tax on tips for ‘‘rudeness to patrons or management’’, and a $50 fine for ‘‘hanging around in changing rooms for [an] unacceptable amount of time’’.
The ERA’S judgment said the fines system, common in strip clubs here and overseas, was at odds with an employment relationship.
However, it found the rules were ‘‘essentially no different than a set of rules that may be imposed upon contractors working on a building site’’ and helped ‘‘protect the ‘brand’ of both Calendar Girls and the dancers’’.
‘‘The nature of the industry, where male customers are drinking alcohol and being ‘tantalised and teased’ to spend fairly large sums of money, inevitably means that the behaviour of both the customers and of the dancers has to be contained.
‘‘The rules are of particular help to new and inexperienced dancers, who need to learn quickly the best way to operate.’’
The ERA said it said it was ‘‘striking’’ that dancers could potentially earn nothing if customers chose not to tip.
The women purchase their own lingerie, makeup and hair products, demonstrating that ‘‘the dancers are their own ‘product’, which they own and have control over, and utilise to earn their living’’.
‘‘The arrangement can be seen as a co-dependent commercial relationship, albeit one where the dancers are junior partners in terms of their financial investment and reward.’’