19 Feb 2024

Strippers call on Parliament for fair working conditions

From Morning Report, 6:22 am on 19 February 2024

Sex work activists - The Fired Up Stilettos - are kicking up what they'd like to call a FUS.

Nineteen strippers were fired from Calendar Girls Wellington via a Facebook post in February last year for attempting to collectively bargain for fair pay and legal contracts.

A year later, the group has delivered a petition to parliament and attached was a 52-page-long paper that called for legislation to grant sex workers labour rights that are the same as those given independent contractors.

On February 1 the group rallied on Parliament grounds where pole dancing, chanting and first-hand accounts of the industry were hard to ignore.

Morning Report producer, Ellie Franco, was there.