Sex workers go on strike too
Zeit-Tafel:
5000 Jahre
Kampf um Rechte
Posted on June 28, 2011 by Thierry Schaffauser
http://thierryschaffauser.wordpress.com ... trike-too/
Sex workers’ unionisation and organisation is possible. In the UK, the GMB was founded more than one century ago by gas workers who many thought they couldn’t organise. They were young workers, with very hard working conditions, but they were able to be the first in the world to win a working time agreement at 8 hours a day. Nowadays, the GMB organises sex workers who face similar issues. Because of the law, sex workers can’t work together and are isolated from each other which makes difficult to meet colleagues and organise collectively. Despite being called the oldest profession we are one of the youngest trade union and we still lack this culture of trade unionisation.
In the past, sex workers have already taken industrial actions.
- European Cities in the Middle Ages
"Prostitution was organized into guilds, presided over by a brothel queen. These guilds employed strikes as a medium of improving their condition and keeping a standard price."
-Emma Goldman
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=110535#110535 - Cologne 1492
Rebellion of detained sex worker at the magdalene laundry Kloster „St. Maria Magdalena zur Buße“, Machabäerstraße Ecke Turinerstraße (closed 1802 Reichsdeputationshauptschluß und Ende des Heiligen Römischen Reiches HRR nach der französischen Revolution)
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=137704#137704
www.de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsdeputationshauptschluss - London Bawdy House Riots of 1668
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bawdy_House_Riots_of_1668
[added MoF] - San Francisco 1917
March of 300 prostitutes against anti-vice movement and roundup
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=106108#106108 - Hawaii Honolulu 1942
Sex workers went on strike and picketed for 22 days to protest against specific brothels rules and the martial law that denied their rights, including their freedom of movement.
www.redumbrellaproject.com/the-hawaii-p ... episode-39 - Lyon and France 1975
In 1975 about 100 prostitutes occupied church Saint-Nizier in Lyon, France, to express their criminalized and precarious situation of living and survival. After that a national movement was set off, but on 10th of June at 5 o'clock the church was brutally raided by police forces. Nowadays sex workers in Europe and the World celebrate 2nd of June - Intl. Sex Worker Day - Sex Worker Pride (Europe).
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationaler_Hurentag - Machala Ecuador 1984
Sex workers went on strike to protest exploitation and closed the brothels they were working in.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fiJz ... -&pg=PA172 - San Francisco 1997
Strippers working in the Lusty Lady club took action and founded a trade union called the Exotic Dancers Union.
In 2003, the owners of the club then decided to close it but the unionised workers bought the club to run it as a cooperative.
www.lustyladysf.com/history - Bolivia 2007
Up to 35,000 prostitutes across the country have refused to report for the medical checkups required every 20 days to legally work the streets.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=25667#25667 - Padua, Italy 2007
Sex workers offer free sex, indicated by a sticker button which street walkers wear "Bollino Del Amore" to protest against of zoning rules and prohibition by the major.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=15055#15055 - Ghana 2010
Sex workers organised within the Commercial workers union decided to raise their rates collectively in response to high inflation.
http://news.peacefmonline.com/social/201002/38675.php - Occupy Wall Street 2011
http://community.feministing.com/2011/1 ... ll-street/ - Madrid, Spain 2012
Luxury Escort Association forced bankers to give credit to SME instead of speculation with cheap ECB money by declining sex dates.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=112709#112709 - El Alto, Bolivien 2012
About a dozen of the striking sex workers, both female and male, protested in the lobby of a neighbourhood health clinic on hunger strike against hospital closures where they go for STI-check up.
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=115428#115428
Some opponents to sex workers’ rights say that sex workers never go on strike which is seen as an evidence of our lack of power and lack of capacity to organise. When sex workers organise, we do in priority against violence, criminalisation and the bad laws. In that context, we may often end up defending the same interest as the employers of the sex industry and this leads some to think that instead of organising against our exploitation we act in its favour.
Because of the law, many sex workers have to work as self employed. Indeed, any boss would be legally considered as a pimp. Challenging an employer would make visible this employer/employee relationship and could lead to arrest and thus jeopardise the job itself. A closed brothel or escort agency means one less workplace for us and losing our job. Despite our economic interest being different to those of our employers, many sex workers will show them respect and solidarity; because an employer is often a former worker or seen as a co-worker when many are still doing their old clients, because they are the ones taking the risk legally for us so we can work indoors or in a safer environment, and because despite situations of exploitation, when they don’t force us to work, we don’t see them as criminals.
According to the law and the UN declaration on Human Rights, any worker has the right to join a trade union. Any worker has the right to go on strike because our ancestors died for it and this should be remembered. Sex workers must have the same labour rights as any other worker because we are workers too.
Direktlink zu diesem posting (bitte weitergeben):
www.sexworker.at/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4508&start=113
EN www.bit.ly/sexworkhistory
DE www.bit.ly/sexworkgeschichte
