Today in Labor History August 29, 1997: Dancers at Lusty Lady voted to join the Exotic Dancers Alliance, a local of SEIU, winning guaranteed work shifts, pay raises, removal of the one-way mirrors that allowed clients to secretly film them, and protection from arbitrary discipline and firing. They also forced management to end its racist scheduling practice of allowing only one BIPOC dancer on stage at any given time. In 2003, when management threatened to close the club, the workers took it over and ran it as a workers' co-operative, with all dancers earning equal pay, and all decisions made by consensus of the workers, making it the first worker run business in the U.S. sex industry. For more on this important organizing campaign, read Jenny Worley’s fantastic account in “Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education in Protest and Power.” Also read Leila’s essay about it in Found SF: https://www.foundsf.org/Lusty_Lady_and_Sex_Worker_Power Image: Exotic dancers carry a banner above a taxi during a funeral procession to symbolize the closure of Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco. Photo: Stephen Lam, Reuters Pictures (From FoundSF https://www.foundsf.org/Lusty_Lady_and_Sex_Worker_Power) #workingclass #LaborHistory #sexworkers #sexworkiswork #exoticdancing #union #lustylady #sanfrancisco