WASHINGTON — It’s a minimum wage battle that many people might not be hearing much about. Since exotic dancers consider themselves employees as part of the adult entertainment industry, they have filed lawsuits to get at least minimum wage.
In the latest case, a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling Wednesday that exotic dancers from two strip clubs in Prince George’s County, Maryland, were employees of the club, not independent contractors as the defending strip clubs claimed.
The plaintiffs in the case say that the strip clubs where they worked failed to give them a paycheck and had not given an hourly wage — instead, their earnings were limited to “performance fees” and direct tips from patrons. They claimed that the clubs failed to pay them the minimum wage that is required by federal law in the Fair Labor Standards Act and Maryland state law.
The first ruling for this case came from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland at Greenbelt that found that these entertainers were employees. This meant that the strip clubs should have been paying them minimum wage.
The courts looked at the relationship between the dancers and the strip clubs to determine the difference between “employee” and “independent contractor.” While the defending clubs portrayed the dancers as “free agents” and claimed the relationship was just the clubs providing a rented space for performances, the dancers claimed that the clubs closely regulated their schedules, earnings and workplace behavior.
The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia, which recently upheld the lower court ruling that these women were employees.
Similar law suits have been taking place across the country at least for over the last several years. In April 2011, a federal judge ruled that five dancers at a D.C. strip club were entitled to minimum wage.
Teta Alim contributed to this report from Washington.
