The Lusty lady, a peep show club in San Francisco, is currently the only unionised nude theatre in the U.S. Julia Query is a union organiser and co-director of documentary "Live Nude Girls UNITE!"

Respect: How did you become a peep show dancer?

Julia: I went in to become a stripper because I had left graduate school and I didn’t want to be in school anymore. I needed work with flexible hours and good pay. Something that would allow me to jump in and out, because I was going on tour a lot, as performance artist and as a stand-up comedian. So it was that — flexible hours, good pay, work I could come and go from. And it was easy for me to be naked. I don’t have a lot of shame issues and I am lucky — without much effort I have a body that is considered good enough, by traditional standards.

Respect: how did the idea of setting up a union come about?

Julia: Well, at the ‘Lusty Lady', where I work, women have been trying to organise for about eight years. Women have been complaining to management about issues. Women have been writing protest letters and having people sign petitions. But they weren’t getting anywhere by just going to management. And then when we started to organise, we weren’t thinking of unionising. But one of our members went to an ‘Exotic Dancers’ Alliance’ meeting, which was held over at a union’s office — SEIU 790. They had already set up a letter of agreement with SEIU 790 — the service employees union — that that union would represent any group of strippers in San Francisco who wanted to unionise. We were really pleased that they were willing to do it, except that we hadn’t decided to unionise. But they said we had no rights unless we unionised. We didn’t know that, but when they explained the laws we saw that basically, we could hand in a petition that had every single person’s signature to our office, and we could all be fired. We had no protection under the law, unless we were union organised.

Respect: What were the demands you made when you set up the union?

Julia: We started organising because customers were coming in and taking video or pictures of us against our will, without our knowledge. Because some of the windows that face the stage were two way mirrors — so we couldn’t see the customers but they could see us. So we couldn’t tell if they had a video camera and they were getting away with footage. Sometimes we could see the little red lights and we would call some support staff, and they might catch the person or they might not. That was the big issue that really got people going. We had other problems too. We were scheduled based on race, breast size, hair colour… If you got sick it was your responsibility to have somebody covering your shift, but not just anybody in the list. You had to get somebody who looked like you or was ‘better’. And in their way ‘better’ meant blonder or with bigger tits. You would be fired if you didn’t have anybody covering your shift, or you would have your pay cut in half — which was very illegal!

Respect: So, how effective has the union been?

Julia: The union has been really effective. We have much better working conditions now. They can’t fire us without just case; we have a point-system so that it’s much more uniform; we are working to get rid of discriminatory policies; management can’t cut our pay in half for any reason; we have sick days; we aren’t scheduled based on race or breast size anymore; if you are sick you can either call in and have them replace your shift, or you can replace it yourself with somebody, but it can be anybody in the list. And we are better paid!

Respect: What has been the response of the community and the media to your union?

Julia: The community in San Francisco is very liberal and supportive. We have had support from all sorts of feminist groups, from the National Organisation of Women, etc. But the media generally still sees us as a joke. The print media does take us seriously, but television always reports about us with a smirk.

Respect: Since the union has been set, did management try to overstep the arrangements? Did you have to take measures?

Julia: Sure. Our union warned us that owners always have to be trained for their first year of a contract. They don’t get it that they don’t have complete control anymore. They won’t remember the contract, and so we have to call them on things. For instance, we had a point system whereby you had to get 25 points to be fired. And there was this woman who got 24 points very quickly. She was African-American. She wasn’t a particularly reliable dancer and the owner fired her at 24 points. So I had to tell him he couldn’t do that, that he had to wait until she had 25 point— she has to earn being fired. And the owner was saying she would just screw up again. And I said. "Oh, yeah! That is why you can rest easy. She will screw up again and you can fire her then. But you can’t fire her at 24. And if you do, I’m going to point out that 3 times as many African-American girls have been fired that white girls. And I’m gonna sue you! You are going to have to spend a lot of money on lawyers and I don’t because I have a union who pays for that. So, buddy, learn the rules!" And so it was… he hired her again, he lowered her points, and a week-later she screwed up and she was fired. And that was O.K. to me. I don’t want people who show up to work 5 hours late working in my club. But I want owners to know that that they really have to follow the letter of the law. Otherwise they will go back to their old ways, which were "I don’t like you; you are fired!"

Respect: What advise would you give us in trying to set up a movement of the same kind based in the U.K.?

Julia: I think that you have to know that an organisation that is going to work with sex workers has to provide multiple services. It has to provide both meetings where people can talk about working conditions, but also some sort of counselling that doesn’t feel like counselling. Because people don’t like counselling, but I think they wouldn’t mind a place where they could go and bitch and talk emotionally about what’s going on. Because we need to have alliances with each other. It’s important to have a place to go where you actually share the realities of your working conditions, etc. If people keep lying about how much money they make, and keep saying that they are ok, there is no connection to be made. It is only when we have unity that we have power. I also think it is important to have people who are not working in the industry in your movement. So many times a lot of workers can’t join the picket lines because they can’t be viewed. We got around that by having other people in our union who aren’t sex workers coming to the picket line with us. And it helps to have people who are in the ‘straight’ world as allies because so often strippers feel alienated from it. Many have a sort of cow-boy mentality of "I can take care of myself; I can do it alone". And that is not what makes a union.