Unmanageable Work, (Un)liveable Lives
| Author | Katie Cruz |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0964663913484639 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Social & Legal Studies
22(4) 465–488
Unmanageable Work,
ª The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663913484639
The UK Sex Industry,
sls.sagepub.com
Labour Rights and
the Welfare State
Katie Cruz
University of Nottingham, UK
Abstract
This article draws from interview material with sex worker rights activists in London,
and sex work scholarship, to explore the demand for labour rights for sex workers and
erotic dancers. I argue that there are two positions visible in activism and scholarship,
which I term ‘liberal’ and ‘materialist’. Whilst the former posits that the problem with
sex work is insufficient mainstreaming of commercial sex within the labour market, the
latter stresses the need for protections and freedoms from the labour market and
repressive criminal and immigration laws. I suggest that these two perspectives need to
be thought together. To this end, for the first time in the UK context I ask what labour
rights can do for erotic dancers and indoor-based sex workers. I argue that, whilst labour
law may offer some level of protection, both forms of commercial sexual service are ulti-
mately unmanageable and that the strategy of securing individual labour rights suffers
from several limitations. In the final part, I map the materialist frames onto broader fem-
inist citizenship debates. I ask whether these models can deliver the protections sought
and tentatively propose that a feminist-oriented demand for a basic income may be of
use to the sex worker rights movement today.
Keywords
Activism, basic income, citizenship, labour rights, liberalism, materialism, sex work and
erotic dance
Corresponding author:
Katie Cruz, Department of Law, University of Nottingham, Law & Social Sciences Building, University Park,
Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK.
Email: llxkc4@nottingham.ac.uk
466
Social & Legal Studies 22(4)
Introduction
How to conceptualise and govern commercial sex is far from settled and is the subject of
profuse debate amongst policy makers, scholars and activists. In this article, I begin from
the view that sex workers are workers, and focus on female erotic dancers (table top
dancing, lap dancing and pole dancing) and brothel and sauna-based workers who sell
sexual services (I will refer to this type of work throughout as sex work to mark it off
from erotic dance). Sex work has never been recognised as a legitimate form of labour
in the United Kingdom. Erotic dance clubs, on the other hand, are considered a legitimate
business within the burgeoning night-time economy. This situation is complicated by the
recent introduction of legislation that gives power to local authorities to control, and
ultimately close, what are now called ‘sex entertainment venues’.1 The sexual exploita-
tion and nuisance framework through which sex work is largely understood by the gov-
ernment has therefore been brought to bear on erotic dance, narrowing the discursive
space in which to discuss the labour rights of erotic dancers.
This article draws from interview material with sex worker rights activists in London
and my experience of sex worker rights and feminist activism in the same city.2 Thirteen
semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of the xtalk collective; Fem-
inist Fightback; General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union (GMB);
International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW); Sex Worker Open University (SWOU);
and English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), and two interviews with sex worker rights
supporters from the UK Network of Sex Work Projects. The aim of the interviews was to
explore three themes: the type of rights and freedoms sought; politics regarding engaging
the state and law; and the relationship between feminism/s and sex worker rights acti-
vism. Responses to the first two themes inspire, and are weaved throughout, this article.
The first part outlines two positions, apparent in activism and scholarship, structuring
the question of labour rights for sex workers and erotic dancers. I start with these
perspectives because they reveal two concerns that I argue must be thought together and
form the basis of my discussion in the following two parts: access to labour rights and
protections and freedoms from the capitalist labour market. First, then, the dominant
position sees sex work and erotic dance as legitimate professions that can be brought
in line with labour protections and treated as a ‘respectable employment relation’
(Weeks, 2011: 68). I term this the ‘liberal’ position and argue that it is premised on the
notion that the problem with sex work is the insufficient mainstreaming of commercial
sex within the labour market. The alternative position is one which I term ‘materialist’:
whilst granting sex workers labour rights is not rejected, these scholars and activists offer
a more critical vocabulary and radical politics. Materialist scholars and activists, not to
mention their demands, have received little attention in the sex work literature.
In the second part, I ask what labour rights can do for indoor ‘managed’ sex workers
and erotic dancers.3 This is a question that has been posed but never answered in the UK
context. I argue that both forms of commercial sexual service, whilst labour law may
offer some level of protection, are ultimately unmanageable. Whilst erotic dancer–man-
ager relations in the United Kingdom were recently construed as employer–employee by
the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) (only to be overturned by the Court of Appeal
(CA)), indoor ‘managed’ erotic dance and sex work are not most usefully understood as
Cruz
467
an employer–employee relation: club owners have not suddenly become compassionate
capitalists and begun to offer contracts of service, workers are not organising for such
contracts, and neither bosses nor workers appear to see this relation as desirable. It seems
that workers are only using ‘employee’ status strategically and retrospectively, once they
have left the workplace, and there is good reason to think that this is how employee status
will continue to be used.
Despite this, the category of ‘worker’ found in the Working Time Regulations
(Regulations) 1998, and ‘in employment’ as found in the Equality Act (EA) 2010 and
interpreted in recent case law, might be of some use. Both self-employed erotic dancers
and sex workers contracted personally to perform work in conditions of subordination
and dependency can benefit from both layers of protection. However, the relationship
between control (employee) and subordination/dependence (‘worker’ or ‘in employ-
ment’) is not at all settled, neither, for that matter, is the relationship between subordina-
tion and dependence. As with employee status, it does not seem that managers are going
to opt for an employer–worker relation; thus attempts to secure rights as workers will
remain individual and retrospective until sex workers decide that ‘worker’ is an employ-
ment relation that needs to be fought for in the workplace. I conclude this part by reflect-
ing on the difficulties in bringing sex workers under the auspices of UK labour law,
reflecting upon why employee status is not a desirable employment relation and the fact
that formal inclusion is no guarantee of protection.
In the third part, I consider calls for protections and freedoms from the capitalist labour
market being articulated by materialist scholars and activists. Judith Butler’s theorisation
of ‘politically induced precarity’ (Butler, 2009: 322), which must be apprehended in order
to conceive of ways in which ‘life’ may be made more liveable (Butler, 2010: 31), frames
the discussion. I suggest that the materialist frames outlined in the first part are exposing
and contesting the government’s ‘sexual exploitation’ and ‘vulnerability’ frames, which
render many sex workers’ lives unintelligible. I argue that stressing the need for protec-
tions from the labour market, these materialist perspectives can be mapped onto broader
feminist citizenship debates. Drawing from Kathi Weeks’ theorisation of the demand for
a basic income as critique, practical response and provocation, I ask whether and how such
a demand might be of use to the sex worker rights movement today.
Part 1. Two Approaches to Labour Rights: Liberal and Materialist Positions
Scholars and sex worker rights activists critical of the state and the radical feminist push to
abolish the sex industry via criminalisation and rehabilitation argue that sex work must be
decriminalised and that sex workers should be recognised as workers and have the right
to unionise. But there is a lack of discussion about what kind of employment relations
and protections are desirable. One activist described the confusion in the following way:
. . . it seems a bit short sighted sometimes to just say, you know, we’re against criminalisa-
tion . . . how is it going to operate then? Is anyone allowed to have a brothel, or should there
be brothels with 2 or 3 people . . . I don’t know, so, yeah, I kind of wish there were more
debates in the sex work movement about what we actually want to achieve. (xtalk and
SWOU activist)
468
Social & Legal Studies 22(4)
Kate Hardy and Teela Sanders’ recent study of lap dancing clubs across the United
Kingdom concludes that the focus needs to shift from the demand rhetoric being
pushed by feminist groups (such as Object4) to ‘working practices which make dancing
an initially low risk investment and buoyant even in times of crisis’ (Hardy and
Sanders, 2012: 530). I agree with Hardy...
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