IV. Boob Jobs: Implications
for the Share Economy
The erosion of the employment relationship is the backdrop
for this study of exotic dancers. By
one estimate, 53 million Americans engage
in freelance work, including 21.1 million who are classified as independent
contractors.[1] The share economy refers to an “economic model in which
individuals are able to borrow or rent assets owned by someone else.”[2]
My study explores
a small but revealing corner of the share economy. The business model for strip
clubs creates value for owners by commoditizing sexual labor.[3] By transmuting employment into tenancy and contractor
relationships, clubs monetize a dancer’s sexual labor into phony assets that pay
tips and fees to support her co-workers. Clubs should pay dancers and their
co-workers, however, in a conventional employment relationship. The current transactional
model not only enables clubs to exploit dancers, emcees, DJs, house moms,
bartenders and bouncers by avoiding payment of wages, but also frees clubs from
paying taxes and premiums to Social Security, Medicare, health insurance plans,
unemployment and worker’s compensation. By shirking these responsibilities,
clubs add to the burden for responsible employers and individual taxpayers who
pay into these mandated benefit programs.
The work
arrangements for exotic dancers is hardly novel, however. It resembles
conventional work that offers individuals the illusion of control over one’s work
schedule.[4] The transactional model that clubs use to abuse contactor agreements
at the expense of the employment relationship has disquieting implications for
millions of workers who perform mundane work.
What is the
connection between strip clubs, on the one hand, and mainstream firms in the
share economy? The research in this study is part of my broader attempt to map
the full range of occupations that are unlawfully structured in independent
contractor relationships. My preliminary results show that a wide range of work
is misclassified along similar lines that clubs use. These jobs— and more
broadly, their industries— include telecommunications (cable[5] and fiber optic installers[6]); cleaning services (maids[7] and janitors[8]); protective services (security guards[9] and police[10]) construction (drywall installers,[11] window and door installers,[12] carpenters,[13] painters,[14] HVAC technicians,[15] and welders[16]); health care (nurses[17] and ultrasound technicians[18]); distribution (warehouse workers[19] and package delivery workers[20]); local transportation (school bus drivers,[21] cabbies,[22]—and perhaps of most significance due to its rising
popularity, ride share drivers[23]); and others (garment workers[24] and grocery baggers[25]).
Emerging as a
theme in this research, companies offer individuals illusory ownership of their
human capital by entering into independent contractor agreements.[26] For example, Uber and strip clubs share a common strategy of
shifting basic infrastructure costs to their workers. Consider that Uber’s
licensing agreement requires driver-operators to bear all the cost of
maintaining cellular accessibility to the company’s dispatching system.[27] This mimics the club strategy of requiring dancers to pay
rent for dressing rooms and stage time. Uber, like clubs, lowers its costs of
operation by failing to pay for mandated social safety nets that are underfunded.[28] And while Uber and strip clubs play up the angle that
workers can enhance their freedom by being independent contractors, the reality
is that many individuals enter into an exploitative work arrangement that
mirrors other forms of exploitation in their personal lives.[29]
My analysis concludes with a professional confession. As I
researched misclassification cases for my larger study, I eliminated exotic
dancer cases from consideration. My reasons were more visceral than
sophisticated, but included a mixture of moral superiority and the idea that
sexual labor is not real work. However, new cases involving dancers cropped up
as often as those involving cable installers and similarly mundane jobs. At
some point, I discerned similarities: the day-to-day nature of toiling for a
living; the putative employer’s continued reliance on these workers; the
shifting of business costs to low-wage workers in the form of bogus rental and
lease contracts; corporate over-reaching in the form of fines, claw-back
contracts for work deficiencies, and outright wage theft from people who appear
to live on the margins of income security; and the long-term implications that
possibly millions of workers are now strategically detached from legal
protections for employees. A growing segment of dancers, Uber drivers, and
other misclassified workers no longer play the passive role of boobs.[30] They realize they have been beguiled into accepting these
false conditions of employment.[31] Owning up to my initial dismissal of strippers as exploited
employees, I came to a new appreciation for Margaret Meade’s enduring precept:
“Every time we
liberate a woman, we liberate a man.”[32]
No comments:
Post a Comment