Strip-club dancer sues over lost wages, fees
In the years she worked as a stripper at Confidential Gentlemen’s Club, Unique Robinson claimed she never was paid any hourly wages.
On top of that, she and the other dancers say they had to pay a house fee and other kickbacks amounting to $100 or more each night and shared tips with managers and other workers.
Now, she has filed a federal lawsuit in Columbus against the club and is seeking to declare the case a class-action involving more than 50 current and former dancers at the Far East Side club.
The case is the latest in a string of cases against strip clubs across the country. Many allege similar patterns at clubs that classify dancers as independent contractors who receive no wages from the club while being forced to pay various fees to the club, bouncers, managers and others.
“Ms. Robinson believes that if the club is going to make her and the dancers follow the clubs rules and policies and treat her and the other dancers like employees, the club should have followed the law and paid her and the other dancers minimum wage plus tips like employees in all other tipped industries receive,” said her attorney, Gregg
Greenberg of Silver Spring, Maryland.
“Ms. Robinson believes the club took advantage of her and the other dancers when they stole their tips and did not pay the minimum wage as required by the law.”
The club could not be reached for comment, and Greenberg said Robinson did not want to make herself available for an interview. As of mid-day Wednesday, the club had not filed a response to the suit.
Robinson and the other dancers are seeking to recover lost wages, the money they paid to the club and other costs, according to the suit. Greenberg said a similar case he handled in Maryland led to dancers receiving between $40,000 and $60,000 each.
Robinson danced at the club at 1962 Lake Club Dr. from 2017 through March 2021, according to the lawsuit. She typically worked four to six shifts per week totaling 30 to 40 hours a week.
The club controlled all aspects of her job, including prices on private and semiprivate dances, dance specials and other promotions, according to the complaint.
Treating dancers as independent contractors is common in the industry, said Michael Leroy, a law professor at the University of Illinois who has tracked the rising number of workers classified as independent contractors.
“What’s happening to them is a window into what’s happening with whitecollar jobs,” he said.
Leroy released a study in 2017 of lawsuits filed from 2000 to 2015 against strip clubs in which workers were denied wages and work-related reimbursements because they were classified as independent contractors. These workers also had to share tips and pay fees to the clubs to the point where one worker actually
owed the club more than she earned.
Of the 75 cases, judges found that in 72 of them, the dancers were misclassified as independent contractors.
Leroy said he’s gotten no indication that the industry has changed since he did the study.
Leroy began tracking the cases of the dancers when they started cropping up with other wage cases involving cable installers and rideshare drivers, for example. He said the issue could extend to other industries such as cleaning services, construction and health care.
“The key moment occurred when I read rideshare operator cases side-byside
with dancer cases and noticed similarities in their business models – especially how these firms shifted business costs to these workers,” he wrote in the study.
Businesses that use independent contractors tout the freedom allowed the workers but ignore the fact that such arrangements mean these businesses aren’t paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, workers’ compensation premiums and benefits, Leroy said.
“Many of these gig jobs have questionable arrangements with their workers,” he said. mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams