False Self‐Employment, Autonomy and Regulating for Decent Work: Improving Working Conditions in the UK Stripping Industry
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12201 |
| Author | Kate Hardy,Katie Cruz,Teela Sanders |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12201
55:2 June 2017 0007–1080 pp. 274–294
False Self-Employment, Autonomy and
Regulating for Decent Work: Improving
Working Conditions in the UK Stripping
Industry
Katie Cruz, Kate Hardy and Teela Sanders
Abstract
A large-scale study of working conditions in UK-based strip dancing clubs
reveals that dancers are against de facto self-employment as it is defined
and practised by management, but in favour of de jure self-employment that
ensures sucient levels of autonomyand control in the workplace. While dancers
could potentially seek ‘worker’ or ‘employee’ status within the existing legal
framework, their strong identification with the label ‘self-employed’ and their
desire for autonomy will likely inhibit these labour rights claims. We propose
an alternative avenue for improving dancers’ working conditions, whereby self-
employed dancers articulate their grievances as a demand for decent work,
pursued through licensing agreements between clubs and local authorities and
facilitated by collective organization.
1. Introduction
Erotic dancers in the United Kingdom are labelled as self-employed workers
or independent contractors. The high degree to which dancers aredisciplined
and managed by clubs means, however, that they experience relatively low
levels of autonomy, which appears uncharacteristic of self-employment.Legal
scholars haveadvanced suggestions for remedying this ‘false self-employment’
in the stripping industry through re-classifying dancers as regular employees
or workers of the clubs (Albin 2013; Cruz 2013). At the same time, the
persistence of self-employment across the sex industry globally suggests that
sex workers may want to remain ‘unmanaged’, which might be because
Katie Cruz is at the Law School, University of Bristol. Kate Hardyis at the Workand Employ-
ment Relations Division, Leeds UniversityBusiness School, University of Leeds. Teela Sanders
is at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds.
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2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
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False Self-Employment, Autonomy and Regulating for Decent Work 275
workers themselves viewsex work as a ‘private matter’ (Cruz 2013; O’Connell
Davidson 2014).
In this article, we evaluate these challenges to, and possible solutions for,
improving the working conditions of dancers in England and Wales, drawing
on a multi-method study of the UK stripping industry. In previous articles
based on this broader study, we identified low levels of autonomy as a key
challenge for improvingworking conditions, associatedwith the high degree to
which dancers are disciplined and managedby clubs. While we argued thatthis
appears uncharacteristic of self-employment, we found that dancers engaged
in this form of work for the flexibility it oers (Sanders and Hardy 2014). In
further work, we proposed that ‘false self-employment’ in the sex industry —
specifically erotic dance and prostitution — might be addressedby advancing
labour law claims relating to unfair dismissal and holiday pay (Cruz 2013).
We extend these analyses in this article by combining original analysis of
the qualitative data from our sociological study, social and legal theory, case
law and licensing regulation. We argue that dancers want to be self-employed
for two interrelated reasons: despite their low levels of actual autonomy,
dancers perceive ‘self-employment’ as the route to increased autonomy in
the workplace and strongly identify with the label of self-employment.
Our novel empirical finding that dancers want to be self-employed disrupts
straightforward arguments for the use of individual labour law claims and
prompts discussion of alternativestrategies for improving workingconditions.
We conclude that strategies grounded in claims relating to ‘decent work’
norms, which do not turn on dancers asserting a particular employment
status, could usefully frame dancers’ collective demands for licensing
reform.
2. False self-employment and working conditions in the stripping industry
The degree of powerand agency that individual women experience in their role
as dancers has been a key concern within research on the stripping industry
(c.f. Egan 2006; Frank 2002). While this has traditionally tended to focus on
the micro-power dynamicsof the dancer–customer interactions (Barton 2006;
Bradley 2007; Frank 1998; Grandy 2008; Rambo Ronai and Cross 1998),
recent attention in the United Kingdom has turned to how the nature of
the employment relationship determines dancers’ experiences and working
conditions. Sociological research has indicated that working conditions in
strip clubs in the UK are poor (Hardy and Sanders 2015; Sanders and Hardy
2014), while the question of how to improve dancers working conditions is at
the forefront of debates between legal scholars (Albin 2013; Cruz 2013).
This article brings together these legal perspectives with original empirical
data from the largest sociological study of the lap dancing industry to date.
It also responds to calls for empirical research on the area of ‘quasi’ or
‘false’ self-employment (Burchell et al. 1999). This ‘“grey area” between
employment and self-employment’ (Kautonen et al. 2010: 112) has been
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2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd/London School of Economics.
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