Sex Worker Union Organising in the United States

Although the history of organising prostitutes in the United States is replete with acronyms, the biggest advance in organising of sex workers has taken place under the auspices of the EDA, the Exotic Dancers’ Alliance, an organisation dating from the early 1990s. However, and of portent for the experience and success of contemporary unionising attempts in the US, it is worth noting a number of antecedents. Although not necessarily of any identifiable causal link, these show that initiatives to unionise have been taken in the past where grievances gave rise to attempts to organise collectively. Therefore, these instances suggest that the more recent attempts studied in this chapter are as not as exceptional as they might at first sight seem. Historically speaking, several attempts are reported to have been made to organise prostitutes and exotic dancers.1 Burana (2001:150) recorded that other burlesque artistes in the 1950s and 1960s were members of the union, the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). Although AGVA continued to exist, by the early 1980s, for reasons that appeared to be connected with racketeering, burlesque artistes and strippers ceased to be members of the guild (see also Corio and DiMona (1968)). More recently, a number of occurrences are noteworthy. Under a drive to unionise in 1983, two dancer union activists disappeared without trace and have never been found.