Solidarity With These Strippers Who Dressed as Their Club’s OSHA Violations on the Picket Line

Star Garden dancers locked out from the Los Angeles strip club dressed as broken glass, bed bugs, a hole in the stage and more to protest working conditions.

By Susan Rinkunas  |  April 20, 2022 | 5:40pm
EntertainmentEntertainment
Solidarity With These Strippers Who Dressed as Their Club’s OSHA Violations on the Picket Line
Screenshot:TikTok/@labor_babe (Fair Use)

Dancers at a Los Angeles strip club have been on strike since since March 18 and they’re absolutely dragging the club’s owners to hell on the picket line.

Star Garden in North Hollywood allegedly fired two dancers last month after they raised safety concerns. After a majority of others signed a petition demanding safety changes at the club, the owners locked them out—violating the National Labor Relations Act. As per the National Labor Relations Board, “employees at union and non-union workplaces have the right to help each other” by doing things like “sharing information, signing petitions, and seeking to improve wages and working conditions in a variety of ways.”

The workers claim that management recently instituted a policy making it so security guards couldn’t intervene when customers harassed dancers unless they received approval from one of the club’s owners first. In addition to dancers saying this policy compromised their safety, they’re also calling out other harmful working conditions at Star Garden ranging from insect and rodent problems to broken materials that could hurt people.

The group of protesting dancers has filed at least five unfair labor practice charges against the club with the National Labor Relations Board while maintaining an active presence on social media about their cause. They’ve been sharing a supporter petition, strike fund, and footage of the pickets on Instagram at @stripperstrikenoho.

Most notably, the dancers pick a theme for each night’s picket line attire and sing karaoke as they talk to potential customers to let them know the workers are on strike. They also urge these potential customers and passersby to go to other local clubs rather than cross the picket line. In an effort to keep abreast of how many people walked away and how many people went in, the dancers also keep a nightly tally on a white board.

Saturday’s theme centered around the allegations made in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration complaint the dancers filed against the club. The OSHA violations they depicted include shards of broken glass, bed bugs in the furniture, a hole in the stage, a rusty nail on the stage, a white substance falling from the ceiling.

@labor_babe

On Friday, April 15, Star Garden dancers filed a massive OSHA complaint against the club, so on Saturday night we all dressed up as the OSHA allegations. Follow the Star Garden stripper strike on Instagram at StripperStrikeNoho and donate to their strike fund at the link in my bio! #strippersunited

♬ original sound – Jordan


There were also sexy OSHA inspectors and seductive rats. Lest you forgot, someone who crosses a picket line to work at a business whose workers are on strike is known as a scab and a scab is often symbolized by a rat. In the TikTok shared above, a person dressed with ears and whiskers introduces herself as “Scabatha” and says: “I’m the rat that keeps crawling back into this club and crossing the picket line. I do have salmonella and I do bite.”

We have no choice but to support Scabatha.

A dancer named Charm said in a separate video that the majority of the dancers on the picket line and the majority of their high-paying customers are supporting them as well. Charm said “our management underestimates us in a lot of ways but they also underestimate our customers—the fact that most of them actually care about us and what happens to us.”

Jezebel has attempted to contact Star Garden for comment.

 
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