Star Garden Dancers One Step Closer to Joining Equity

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Last week Actors' Equity announced that it was one step closer to unionizing the dancers at Star Garden Topless Dive Bar-the National Labor Relations Board approved a petition for a union recognition election. In other words, if the dancers (and DJs) want a union, they can join one by voting.

This may seem like it should be an automatic process, but much has gone on since Equity first started fighting for this unionization in August. There was discovery, a hearing and more-it was a process.

Star Garden Topless Dive Bar contested the NLRB's jurisdiction because it claimed not to have $500,000 in gross revenues and not to substantially affect interstate commerce (both of which are required for the NLRB to have jurisdiction). A regional director from the NLRB shot down both of these arguments, found that the NLRB could in fact rule on this matter and approved the petition requesting a unionization vote. But, a day after the Actors' Equity release went out, Star Garden Topless Dive Bar asked for special permission to appeal the ruling, stating it had not been given the opportunity to contest just how many people would be part of the unionization voting pool. The ruling asked for names and addresses of 19 people, but Star Garden said only a maximum of six were employees eligible to vote. The petitioners have opposed the review application. It seems unlikely that this challenge will alter the substantive outcome of the decision. Right now, if matters stand as they are, we're less than a month away from Star Garden's adult dancers (aka strippers) and DJs voting on whether to become members of Actors' Equity.

The decision to unionize these adult dancers has been met with a significant amount of controversy, with many Equity members speaking out against it. It is however part of a larger effort from Equity-as explained to BroadwayWorld, Equity is now aiming to organize several previously unaffiliated groups. (Only one other has been announced thus far: the lecturers at the Griffith Observatory Planetarium.)

"The efforts to organize non-Equity tours or theaters that haven't started using Equity contracts at all is ongoing," Actors' Equity President Kate Shindle said in an interview. "But we've also started talking to groups of workers who come to us, or sometimes even individual workers who come to us, and say: 'I am performing, it's live and I would like for this work to be union.'"

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