Dancers at the Calender Girls Club in Pōneke Wellington protested their unjust firing in the capital last week.
After a 2023 contract change, a joint letter saw a group of the workers call for better rights and pay as independent contractors, allowing them to receive clear income records and 60%
This led to them being fired via a facebook post, invigorating conversations about sex worker rights in Aotearoa over all.
Fired Up Stilettos, the group behind the protest, provided 95bFM with the following statement:
“We want industry wide changes for all dancers across New Zealand. We want all adult entertainment venues to be compelled to cease all practices which violate our independent contractor status. Remove all fines and bonds from our contracts.
We also require a limit on what these venues can take from our earnings as contractors. We believe that progress in our industry for workers rights is lagging behind severely because of the structural, social, and political stigma that has been attached to our occupation in the past.
Club owners in New Zealand use this stigma to their advantage, and are able to exploit our workers because we have not had any support. We need public and political support to be able to stop this from happening. Getting fired for standing up for yourself or your rights is systemic to our industry. Our mission is to end this cycle of rights violations, coercion and exploitation. It has to end.”
To learn more about the wider issues of sex worker rights in New Zealand, Liam spoke to Catherine Healey from the New Zealand Sex Workers Collective.
Present at the protests was Greens spokesperson for women and list MP, Jan Logie.
Logie will be speaking to fired up stilettos next month, discussing their demands and how they want to be supported politically.
Liam also spoke to Logie about the protests.
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