- Dancers who work in a topless bar in California are seeking to join the Actors' Equity Association.
- If they win, they will become the only strippers in the US represented by a union, the AEA said.
A group of dancers who work at a topless bar in California have launched a historic bid to unionize with the Actors' Equity Association on Wednesday.
The move is a first for the 100-year-old union, which represents more than 51,000 actors and stage managers, the organization said in a press release.
On Wednesday, dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood filed a petition for union recognition with the National Labor Relations Board. If the workers win the vote to unionize and the results are certified by the board, they will become the only strippers in the US with union representation.
The dancers had already been seeking to unionize, as Insider reported in May, but Wednesday's press release specifically linked their bid to the Actors' Equity Association.
President of the Actors' Equity Association, Kate Shindle, said in the press release that the dancers approached the organization for support. She said: "While some aspects of their job are unique, they have much in common with other Equity members who dance for a living."
Employees of the topless bar, which is based in North Hollywood, are fighting for better protection from the club's security, better pay, and protection against unfair termination.
"We like what we do," a Star Garden dancer named Velveeta said in the press release. "We would like our jobs even more if we had basic worker protections. We're like so many other workers who have learned that it's not a choice between suffering abuse or quitting. With a union, together, we can make needed improvements to our workplace."
Wednesday's press release claimed that the club's security guards repeatedly failed to protect dancers from "threatening and abusive behavior from patrons."
Shindle added: "In my conversations with them, these dancers reported consistent compensation issues — including significant wage theft — along with health and safety risks and violations. They want health insurance and other benefits, like workers' compensation. They need protection from sexual harassment, discrimination, and unjust terminations."
Insider was unable to reach Star Garden for comment.
The dancers are not the first strippers to seek union representation. In 1996, dancers at a club in San Francisco organized an Exotic Dancers Union that was affiliated with the Service Employees International Union until the club closed, according to the Actors' Equity Association.
The LA Times interviewed one of the San Francisco dancers in 1996, who said: "I think it's great, although I'm not surprised we won. It was kind of anticlimactic, after fighting for it for so long. Watching them count the votes was really unreal."