A Stripper’s Complaint

choi

Antonia Crane, Stop Stealing from Strippers; There's nothing exotic about our abysmal working conditions. New York Times, Aug 14, 2015 (op-ed).
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/1 ... from-strippers.html

Quote:

As " 'independent contractors,' [w]e have no health insurance, workers’ compensation or other benefits. We have zero [job] security.

"In 1997, I was part of a successful union organization drive at my former job, a peep show in San Francisco called the Lusty Lady. * * * Service Employees International Union [SEIU] Local 790: The Exotic Dancers Union * * * We became one of the first unions in this country to cover workers in the sex trade.  Lusty Lady was a success story in part because we were employees who punched a time clock and paid taxes. But overwhelmingly, dancers are hired as independent contractors, paid on a tip-only basis.

Note:
(a) "Now, I’m in Cathedral City, in California’s arid Coachella Valley. Just far enough from Los Angeles and Las Vegas to make it indispensable, the club caters to young Marines from a nearby base"
(i) Cathedral City, California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_City,_California
(in the Coachella Valley [sic]; of Riverside County; The town's name derives from "Cathedral Canyon" to the south of the town, so named in 1850 by Colonel Henry Washington because its rock formations were reminiscent of a cathedral)
(ii) Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is 70-km air distance southwest of Cathedral City.

(b) "Dancing has helped many of us through our adult lives — paying for school, families, fledgling careers as creatives — but it is also exploitative."

creative (n): "one who is creative; especially :  one involved in the creation of advertisements"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creative
(c) "a bust of Nefertiti juts out above a doorway near the restroom"

Nefertiti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti