YAS Podcast: Fired Up Stilettos #146 Transcript
In this episode, representatives Margot and Sabeen from Fired Up Stilettos discuss their fight for sex workers’ rights in New Zealand. They share the genesis of the movement, which began with collective action against exploitative practices at a Wellington strip club, leading to the firing of 19 dancers. The movement has since evolved into a broader campaign for better legislation and rights enforcement. They discuss the challenges sex workers face, including unfair fines, contract changes without notice, and broader industry-specific issues. The conversation also touches on their media strategies, protests, and outreach work to build solidarity among sex workers and gain political support. Additionally, they highlight a recent case involving a top government official, Michael Forbes, to underscore systemic issues in protecting sex workers’ rights.
*This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* *This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors.* Begin transcript after opening credits.
AMD: [00:01:00] So we are in the recording room with two representatives from Fired Up Stilettos. I’m here today with Margot and Sabeen. Please say hello to everyone.
Sabeen: Hello.
Margot: Kia ora
AMD: Thank you so much for
being with me. You’re all the way over New Zealand. I’m all the way over here. We made it work. I’m so glad you’re in the room with us today.
How are you doing?
Sabeen: Good.
Margot: Good.
Sabeen: Got our coffee.
That’s all we need.
AMD: Yes. Yes. It’s morning for you and I’m getting ready for dinner and wine and probably smoke a bunch of weed right after this.
So we’re here to talk about Fired Up Stilettos today, which is a very inspiring movement happening in New Zealand.
You’re working for sex workers rights. Specifically because things had happened in this strip club. So what I’d love for you to do is give our audience a little synopsis on how you all got started. Um, you know, what made you decide to start Fired Up Stilettos and bring your group together. If you could just give us a brief history, that would be great.
Sabeen: Yes. Um, so. I think for a lot of us [00:02:00] that became part of the initial Fired Up Stilettos movement, we’d been working not only in this one strip club in Wellington, but a lot of strip clubs nationwide where there’s a lot of problems going on and you just constantly feel like there’s nothing you can do about it.
So when we found ourselves in the situation and this Wellington strip club, um, where they basically said, as of tonight. Um, we are changing our contract on you. You need to start giving us not just 40% of your earnings, but in some case up to 50 or 60%. And, um, here’s no notice. It’s now happening.
Um,
Margot: no option.
Sabeen: No option. Um, I think there was like a lot of other things going on in that strip club, long time, like fines, um, bullying, all that kind of stuff. So there was a very frustrated workforce. Um, and we all just kind of collectively were talking about how unfair we felt this was. And that we thought if we had strengthened numbers, we could do something about it.
So
Margot: they can’t
fire all of us,
Sabeen: surely. Yeah,
all of us. So we collectively signed this letter where we said [00:03:00] we want our cut to remain as we get 60%, and we also wanna start being given a fair, um, like a receipt about earnings
Margot: accurate.
Yeah.
Accurate documentation.
Sabeen: There’s a lot of underpaying and things going on.
Um, and they responded by firing 19 of us via a Facebook post in a Facebook group, but all of our colleagues could see it. And so it was very much so a statement to the rest of, . Everyone else, if you don’t sign this contract, you are also gonna get fired. , And so we ended. Gathering in one of our living rooms.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: We planned out a whole media strategy to go to the media, get the word out. Um, it kind of started gaining traction. Then we started writing a Petition to Parliament. Um, things just kept going. And now we’re kind of like a sex workers union. Yeah. And we just haven’t stopped.
Margot: Yeah.
AMD: Wow. And are, is this the same as calendar girls?
The mass firing that happened, or, yeah.
Margot: The
one,
AMD: yeah. Oh, so that’s the name of the club in Wellington? Right. Okay. Okay. And so the people who [00:04:00] weren’t fired, what, what did they end up doing?
Sabeen: Signing the contract.
Margot: Signing the contract.
Sabeen: Well, there were, there weren’t better options in Wellington.
So it’s kind of like
Margot: there still aren’t,
Sabeen: yeah. And so there was still, I think 37 of us originally signed the
letter.
Margot: Actually, it was more, it was like 45 of us, and then that was when we gave it to the manager.
Yeah.
And then when we, nothing happened, we emailed it to the boss. The, the bonds, the moon guy.
And some people took their names off because they were scared of losing their jobs, obviously. Fair enough. And then it was 37 that signed to one that went,
Sabeen: yeah. So there was still like over 20 that stayed and signed the contract.
AMD: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And. That, that sounds like union busting, right?
That’s what they did, basically.
Margot: Yes.
AMD: They divided you.
Margot: Yes.
AMD: Even though, and we can’t fault people for keeping their jobs because some people need their jobs and just can’t take that risk. There’s different levels of privilege. [00:05:00] So would you say that was, was there any sort of tension between you and the other dancers, or were, were they also the ones that were still working in solidarity with what you’re doing, but just being quiet about it?
Like what was that like?
Margot: It was mixed, to be honest.
Sabeen: Yeah,
Margot: there was, and it was kind of hard to gauge a lot of the time because people are scared to even follow us on Instagram or have people here through the grapevine that they support us because what if the manager finds out and then they’ve got a target on their back?
So it what it has been like kind of hard to gauge.
AMD: Sure.
Margot: And, and it’s been diverse as well. Like some people really back us and will, like we, when we had our protests outside the club when we first got fired, we had like some strippers like coming out and like being in the alleyway with like Hood song like Woo.
And then some, yeah, we just wouldn’t know whether they were supporting us or not. So,
AMD: yeah. Yeah.
Margot: And you’re making our lives harder and we’re like, [00:06:00] we’ve literally always got fired. Like, I mean, and I dunno, like we have our angry protest, please.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah. I, we definitely see that a lot, even movements here in the States where people are trying to change legislation and change our rights in general. It, there’s, there’s a, a sort of a rub up against each other, and that has a lot to do with it, I’m sure. And tell me if I’m wrong, that, you know, management does a lot of indoctrination and Okay.
And a lot of strong messaging, grooming, things like that.
Margot: Yeah.
AMD: Okay.
Sabeen: And I think that’s where there’s like starting to be a little bit of a cultural shift of us. Historically, we’ve, yeah. I think historically there’s been a lot of. Like pitting us against each other and seeing, seeing equal is the problem.
And I think that through the FUS movement,
Margot: Classic sexist bullshit.
Sabeen: Yeah. Through the FUS movement, there’s been a lot of like seeing that we actually can like collectively [00:07:00] unify and make a difference. And it’s actually not us versus each other. It’s us versus our exploiters.
Margot: Yeah. Redirecting the anger
to where it belongs.
AMD: Totally. So do you think some, some dancers that were initially like against what you were doing have sort of kind of changed.
Sabeen: Yeah, we’ve had them even say that.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: Yeah.
We’ve had messages from people being like, initially I was really wary about what you were doing. And as we just keep doing like our outreach and speaking to different people or like giving our, um, speeches at Parliament, people are like, I actually, I’ve come around.
I’m really on board with what you’re doing now. Mm-hmm.
AMD: So what is that like giving speeches to Parliament? How has that been going for you and are there like challenges attached to that?
Margot: It feels like kind of like. Almost silly. Like it’s like, I mean it’s obviously like a kind of big deal. Big deal stuff,
AMD: absolutely.
Margot: Is the potential to have a huge impact, but it also feels so [00:08:00] like weird.
Sabeen: I think we’ve tried to make it like we are strippers in parliament.
Yeah.
And we’re not gonna hide that we are strippers, so we are, yeah. And stripper wear. We wear our pleasers often into the room.
Margot: Yeah. Always wear
pleasers.
Yeah.
Last time I wore latex body suit I think.
Sabeen: Yeah. On you know, we way, which was a little bit awkward ’cause last time the petition that was being heard before ours was for like early childhood care. And so we are like. I
AMD: see
Margot: they had all of these like because wait outside the room to like go in and do your like select committee speech or whatever.
And so they had that early childhood, had all of these children in there with them, like as their supporters. And so all of these little kids are like going out and then we’re going in and out.
I
Sabeen: think in terms of challenges, I think the biggest challenge for a lot of us is, being able to be out in that sphere, you know, like really minimizes the voices that can be part of that conversation.
Um, so it’s like us trying really hard to do a lot of like, outreach to our entire community. Be like, what do you want us to say? And try our best to like [00:09:00] represent their voices. But we have, for the most part actually found the, the select committee and members from every party, even the right wing parties are supportive of what we are doing, whether or not they end up supporting our bill in its entirety.
Margot: Whether they do anything
Sabeen: Yeah, whether they end up supporting it in its entirety is another thing. But I think that on the whole, they are like, yeah, this is a problem, and yeah, this isn’t good enough. So that has been surprising and also really reaffirming.
Margot: Yeah.
AMD: Okay. Well that’s, that’s good to hear. So what, what is your current classification?
Are you considered employees or independent contractors? Do you have contractors?
Sabeen: Independent contractors.
AMD: And is that, so the way that that happens in the United States, if we’re classified as an independent contractor. Whether or not you want to be considered an independent contractor, the way the laws are set up in the States is that we’re supposed to be classified as employees and receive benefits.
Is it the same in New Zealand that you should be classified as employees based on the way the [00:10:00] legislation is written?
Margot: Well, it’s very like. So based on the way that the legislation, there is no legislation really that that accurately describes the way that we work or applies to the way that we work.
We’ve got employment legislation, which covers all employment and then we don’t really, like, contracting is kind of seen as like you look after yourself and you go through like civil court to do, to engage in disputes or things like that. So because, so the assumption is that there’s no power imbalance and that’s why.
But because obviously there are heaps of contractors with power imbalance issues, and our industry is obviously massive for that. Um, it’s basically like you’re, you, the club can control you like you’re an employee because you have very limited options to fight back against any kind of mistreatment or exploitation, but you don’t have the ability to go to the [00:11:00] employment court and be like, this is fucked up ’cause you don’t have any employment rights.
Sabeen: And there have been um, cases where like dancers have gone and tried to sort of go down the misclassification route.
Margot: We are doing that. Yeah, I’m doing that one.
Sabeen: And I think for the most part it’s kind of hard because. The way our contracts are written, um, they have a lot of like, you know, we can fine you for this, we can do this, we can do all these things that are very much so, like stuff you shouldn’t necessarily be able to do to an employee or an independent contractor person.
But like stuff that in there kind of goes against what our rights should be as an independent contractor, but then your avenues available to you, such as like going to the Commerce commission and reporting unfair contract terms. Those institutions aren’t doing anything.
Margot: Yeah,
Sabeen: so we do have limited avenues, but the limited avenues available, we are not actually getting any support.
And so the clubs just know they can do whatever they like. So we are not getting the benefits of being an employee. We are not getting the benefits of being a contractor. We’re getting the bad.
Margot: We’re getting fucked [00:12:00] over both sticks.
Sabeen: Yeah.
Margot: Um, but our ideal is not that we say, you know, give strippers employment rights. Our ideal is that we can like build up the strength on the, within the workforce to in, and have some legislation and actual rights that mean we can enforce our rights as independent contractors and retain our independence and our ownership over our work. Without well at all, that retain ownership over our work with it while working.
AMD: No, I love that. I love that. And I wish that that could be an option in the United States. . You know, but, so it’s, it’s really interesting.
It’s like same, same but different. The issues that you’re having and if- I just, I’m like having all these ideas, like, why can’t we do that? But I know that we can’t, and people that are legally smarter than me would have the answer, so. Um, I might make some of my lawyer friends listen to this episode.
Margot: We, [00:13:00] I, I don’t even know if we know that we can do it.
We’re aiming for this,
AMD: what we’re aiming for.
Sabeen: So that’s what we’re sort
of trying to come through, like we’re, um, working on a member’s bill that we actually do have a, um, party member who’s going to sponsor it. And it’s trying to bring in, um, not only in like giving teeth to legislation to enforce the rights that we already should have, but also build on them because obviously the nature of exploitation and the like marginalized nature of the community of the workforce, we need better protections.
Margot: Yeah,
and
we just
have so many like very industry specific issues and concerns. We are really aiming for legislation that addresses our, our issues. Not like incidentally covers us based on some other thing that was useful for other contractors. We want it to be, that takes into account the stigma.
It takes into account the power dynamic it takes into account female dominated workforce and all of the [00:14:00] misogynistic bullshit that comes with that. Et cetera, et cetera.
AMD: Are you following other stripper movements or sex worker movements that are working on legislation around rights and things like that?
Sabeen: Yeah, they’ve definitely been like, either if they popped up before us, they were a huge source of inspiration.
AMD: Sure.
Sabeen: Um, if they popped up after us, we are always following to see what’s going on. Like with Belgium recently, you know, and the law that came in there, we’re always trying to keep track of what’s going on so that that can inform what kind of is and isn’t working and ideas people are coming up with and how we can just draw ideas off of that.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m asking because you know, that we’ve seen instances, like I said, where there’s been a win. You know, the, the group that’s been fighting for the rights, they get the rights, and then the clubs find a way to then exploit that new thing. Have
you
considered that at all? Or have conversations with each other about what that could potentially look like?
What loopholes they could, they could sneak their way [00:15:00] into. And then also like who, like, ’cause I’m wondering how do we learn from that? And like, so have you, are you able to talk to people in positions of power and be like, Hey, this is a pattern that we see happen in, in our industry globally. How do we avoid this from happening in New Zealand?
Sabeen: Yeah, I think so. We’ve got another member in our group Bea and she’s done a lot of organizing, um, internationally as well. And so thankful to have her as part of our group because she’s obviously seen a lot of this play out in other contexts. Um, and it’s just also very like legally and politically savvy.
So she’s really tried to, with the, um, party that’s helping us draft the bill, try to consider all those loopholes, draw on like obviously things that have happened in other countries Um, and now we are trying to then do really intense outreach with our communities to be like, okay, so we are thinking about doing this.
What do you think of this? Like, how do you feel? Because I think a lot of the sex work community tend to be extremely politically savvy.
Margot: Mm-hmm. [00:16:00]
Sabeen: You know, extremely politically well informed because we are so Yeah. The raddest bitches you know, ’cause we are so impacted by these things.
AMD: Yeah.
Sabeen: And so it’s actually just drawing on the strength of the knowledge of our community to be like, what do you think?
What else can we patch up here? And. Also, um, I don’t know, I’m assuming you probably will the, um, Prostitution’s Reform Act in New Zealand, um, that came in 25 years ago and that was all about like decriminalizing sex work.
AMD: Yeah.
Sabeen: That has a lot of stuff in there that’s trying to, you know, improve sex worker rights, but it doesn’t necessarily have the teeth because like you can’t do anything to have consequences to the clubs or the agencies like brothels and stuff to be like, if you keep doing X, Y, Z.
There is going to be a consequence for that action.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: And I think that’s what we are trying to bring in with our bill is not only just like, have this bill as a standalone thing, but build on existing legislation and try like yeah. Enforce the things in previous legislation.
AMD: Mm. Very cool. I think, um,
Margot: I have thought on this as well and that, [00:17:00] um, in terms of the, like what after the legislation, how do you, because I’ve thought about this a lot in the union building sense, um, of like, yes, we need to get legislation that means that we have something to lean on, but we also need to like build solidarity and union collaboration structures within our workforce so that we can uphold and like enforce that as a workforce when we have them. Because right now we can, we are unionizing and then we are like, okay guys, but we don’t have a lot of options.
But then even if we did have options, we would still need everyone to like unite in defense of our rights. So it’s kind of building up both of those things at the same time.
AMD: Okay.
Sabeen: And trying to build up
plus capacity that when we get the stuff across the line, we can be the union acting in that capacity. You know, we try to be, at the end of the day, not just the strippers union, the sex workers union.
So when you’ve got a problem and you need to like go down one of the avenues available to you, we can support you. We can provide advice. We’ve got like lawyers,
Margot: you’re not alone!
Sabeen: [00:18:00] Yeah, we’ve got lawyers work pro bono for us or whatever that looks like, you know, so that we can actually like give people the ability to actually
Margot: fuck shit up.
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AMD: [00:19:00] So tell us what types of labor violations or exploitative practices are happening in the strip club industry, besides, obviously we know that they were trying to take away too much money from you, but you said that they were also violating your independent contractor rights. So like, can you just kind of list through some of the things that are going on?
I, I’m just curious to see how different or the same it is for the US.
Margot: Yeah. It varies club to club. Where should we start?
Sabeen: We can start with calendar girls.
Margot: Start with calendar girls.
Yeah.
AMD: Okay.
Margot: I, I feel like I’m kind outta the loop on Calendar Girls. I was thinking about, oh, I mean,
Sabeen: mermaids is great.
Margot: Mermaids. Yeah. Mermaids is crazy at the moment in Wellington and they have like- They’ll, they will send girls home and then find them for leaving early. Oh. And there’s just like no recourse and it’s like a $200 fine or something. And then there’s like, they’ll find them for calling in sick and say that they have to get a medical certificate.
But they have to provide a medical certificate for being [00:20:00] sick to come, like too sick to come to a shift that they don’t have to work anyway because they’re an independent contractor. And then if they provide the medical certificate at their own expense and then if they provide that, they might get their fine refunded.
It’s a $360 fine. Yeah, which is more than a lot of them been making in a night because a
AMD: hundred percent, that’s a ridiculous
amount
of money.
Margot: Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s so crazy. And at our club there’s like, we have a, we have a fee for getting paid, so we can either. Pay $5 and have it bank transferred, or we can pay $20 and have it done in cash.
Sabeen: And I’m like, what is 40% cut going towards?
Margot: So it’s so, it’s so,
yeah. They just like take money from wherever they can. It’s so, and, but I think the restriction on hours and the, the like and the control over what you’re wearing, it’s, it’s can be like subtle and it’s all subtle and inconsistent. Um, so that you can never like pin it down.
I
Sabeen: think one of the biggest [00:21:00] things that happened recently to like sort of tie together a lot of the stuff going on.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: We had a dancer at mermaids that nobody was tipping in the club, so they refused to take their underwear off because they’re like. Um, and
Margot: the forced labor.
Sabeen: Yeah. The club was like, you have to, so again, it’s like, you know, I’m not working for free,
Margot: so they’re very gross.
Sabeen: It’s really gross. I’m not working for free. Um, they ended up deciding to send them home because of it. They didn’t fined them for sending them home. They have to work five shifts a week to get free club accommodation. They fired them for not like they sent ’em home and then fired them so they couldn’t complete their shifts.
Then charge them $350 accommodation for that week. So they have the go home early fine. They have the. Fine for not taking their underwear off. They have the, suddenly they’re being charged for rent and they’re supposed to give them 72 hours notice to get out of the club accommodation and they gave them like 48 hours notice.
So that’s just like one,
Margot: which I’m pretty sure also breaches tenancy laws, but that’s like a whole separate thing.
AMD: Okay. What is club accommodation? A
Sabeen: room upstairs in the club. [00:22:00]
AMD: Okay. Is that pretty normal?
Sabeen: No, I wouldn’t say it’s normal, but there are some clubs that offer that. Yeah.
AMD: Okay. Okay. And is that, that’s for traveling dancers?
Margot: Generally it would be, but some people end up living there for a while.
AMD: I see, I see.
Margot: It just
depends on people’s personal situation.
AMD: Totally.
Just, yeah. I’m just, I’m just, I heard you say that a couple times. I just wanted to confirm what that was. Yeah. Um, no, this sounds worse. This sounds worse. Yeah. The sending you home and then you for missing your shift is like-
I can’t even wrap my head around how ridiculous that is, and, and I’m sure that their, their reason for sending you home is probably like you messed up somehow.
Margot: Too
rude.
AMD: Too rude. It could be
anything.
Margot: It could be anything. Absolutely anything. And also the like a lot of the cases where it’s like, oh, this strippers being too rude is because someone fucking like was a cunt or like assaulted her or something.[00:23:00]
AMD: You don’t have
to explain to me why you are
rude to assholes
in the club. I mean
Margot: The point there is that the club security and like the club is not upholding the doing their literal only part of their job Really? Yeah. Is to provide a safe space to work. That’s all they actually need to do.
AMD: Yeah.
Margot: And they don’t do that.
Yeah.
AMD: So what it sounds like to me is that the clubs are treating the dancers as the customers.
Margot: Yes.
AMD: So my question to you then is what do you, do you sell alcohol in the clubs?
Margot: Mm-hmm.
AMD: Is, is that, so they, they make money off of alcohol sales. Do you have food? Food.
Sabeen: They don’t really buy food. But they’ve got a door door fee, so they get money off of door fees, alcohol, and they get a percentage of our earnings often quite high.
Yeah,
AMD: sure, sure.
Sabeen: And sometimes I’m like, what are you doing in return for that? Yeah. And then you might charge me for getting my payoff of you, so,
AMD: right. So then my
question is, how busy are the clubs?
Margot: Not busy enough.
AMD: Okay. So like a Friday, Saturday, is it [00:24:00] packed because it’s Friday and Saturday? Or you get lucky when it’s packed?
Sabeen: I think it’s so up and down.
Yeah.
But it’s very like, um, obviously New Zealand, we’re not a huge country. Some of our bigger cities, you might be a bit more likely to have, um, you know, like a good busy, but I, I’ve been working for almost 10 years now. How busy it used to be back when I started to now. It’s gone seriously downhill.
And I think that that’s like also quite reflective of the economy. Um,
AMD: sure.
Sabeen: You know, New Zealand economy’s not doing great right now. One of the first things you cut is not your mortgage, it’s your stripper fund or whatever. So,
yeah.
AMD: Yes. Yeah. So do you, so in the bigger cities, are they experiencing the same issues that in Wellington you’re experiencing similar?
Yes.
Margot: Yes.
AMD: Okay.
Margot: And I mean, what in Christchurch and Auckland, they would be our bigger cities.
Sabeen: And Hamilton.
Margot: And Hamilton,
yeah.
Sabeen: Yeah. I think they’re like calendar girls, for example. [00:25:00] That makes up, I think when we worked it out about a third of the strip clubs,
Margot: a
fifth in
Sabeen: a fifth, a fifth of the strip clubs in New Zealand, because they’re a big chain.
AMD: I see.
Sabeen: Um, Mermaids the same.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: Um, so you don’t have as many like small kind of boutique strip clubs. Um, you have a lot of chain strip clubs. So whatever they’re doing in one, they’re doing in all.
And so what
we’re experiencing, Wellington is like making up a big part of the experience of strippers in New Zealand.
Margot: Sometimes it changes depending on how much more power they can get, though, like in Christchurch Calendar Girls is the only club. They have two calendar girls in Christchurch and no other options. So they tend to get treated worse down there. Like that’s where they find for the medical certificate stuff.
But they don’t do that in Wellington because the dancers have no other place to work without leaving.
AMD: Right.
Right, right. So how are you able to build solidarity amongst other strippers and sex workers, like across, across, um, Aotearoa? Did I say that right?
Sabeen: Aotearoa
AMD: thank you. [00:26:00] How, how did
Sabeen: I think part of it is like the first thing has been through the FUS movement, like I was saying, unifying the dancers, realizing that we actually, or it’s us first them rather than the other way around. I think it’s also like using the power of internet to do that information sharing about this is what your existing rights are and this is what the existing like kind of legal action or whatever you can take and we will support you to do that.
Um, and I think that that’s, yeah, kind of massive. ’cause for a long time the stigma as well, like has a heavy influence on this. If you don’t believe you can get any better or you even deserve any better, people don’t speak out. Yeah. And so it’s just sort of trying to like uplift and empower dancers to be like, no, you can do something about this.
No, this doesn’t have to stay like this. And trying to just like go, we’re throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. And then whenever we find something that sticks, we are like, cool, we’re gonna tell everyone about this. Like, you can do it. You can do it. Like we, we helped a dance to get her, I don’t know if bonds are common over where you are.[00:27:00]
Bonds.
We have to
pay like a thousand dollars. They just take it progressively out of your pay. A thousand dollars go like indebted to the club.
AMD: No
Margot: In case you break stuff?
AMD: No.
Margot: But then they’ll take your fines out of your bond or like, you know, you’ll go to leave and then they’ll be like, oh, your bond’s only got $200 left in it because of all of these reasons.
Yeah.
Sabeen: It’s, and so we helped, we helped a dancer go, um, to what, what was the avenue that
Margot: The Disputes tribunal.
Sabeen: Yeah. And she got her bond back, and so it was probably the first time there had been like a, mm-hmm. Moment where a club would be like, no, you can’t just not do the dancer. Thousands dollars there.
Margot: I love the story because the,
it’s really highlights like collective power versus institutional power. So they went to, they went to the small claims court, which is like the civil court for not that big deal stuff. Um, and they won the, the judge [00:28:00] or the person, I don’t know who it is, ruled yes, this club needs to pay you this money, but there’s no enforcement mechanism so they can’t you, if you want to make sure you get paid, you have to like hire debt collectors yourself.
Or something. But what they actually did was they got their mates to leave heaps of Google reviews on the club fit page. Me like pay, pay, Sierra money, blah, blah, blah. And it worked.
AMD: No, that’s amazing.
Margot: I love that. I was like, Google reviews is the wakeboard for organizing.
AMD: Right.
So that’s people coming together, right?
And that sounds like probably not just sex workers did that, like civilians were involved in that work, right? Mm-hmm. That’s amazing because my, my next question is like. What do the people in power, right, that aren’t in the strip clubs that you’re bringing all of this information to, and they’re helping you, like they’re helping you navigate this and they’re looking at what you’re writing and the changes that you want, like what is their reaction?
Because I am flabbergasted. To me, this sounds like, and you’re enslaved to the club..
Margot: [00:29:00] Yes. Yes.
AMD: That’s how it sounds to me. So what, what are these people in power, these people, when you go to Parliament, what, what is their reaction? What do they say?
Sabeen: They’ve actually, so we, um, the search committee eventually, um, wrote a report, like, it’s basically like a recommendations report.
And they were like- in much more formal language, “this is fucked up.” Something, something needs to change.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: So there has been recognition for sure. Um, and also like
Margot: it’s hard
to get more than recognition though, I will say.
Sabeen: Yeah. But I have noticed, so, um, B who I mentioned before, she’s been doing a really awesome job of actually relationship building with like members of every single political party we have in the country and all of them have been agreeable that there’s an issue, and I think that that’s just like obviously a massive first step because getting people from even the most like right wing, crazy parties being like, yes, sex workers, your rights are being violated, is like
AMD: they’re saying that? They’re saying that.[00:30:00]
Sabeen: Yeah. And so that’s like massive, you know, that it’s not to say that we necessarily wanna align with these parties, but
AMD: of course
Sabeen: it’s important to like, you know, for our bill to get across the line, we need members of parliament regardless of what party they’re in to vote yes on it.
Mm-hmm.
AMD: Yeah. And it’s okay to agree on some things and not everything, and that’s okay.
And that’s really. Um, hopeful I guess that they’re, I hate that word, but it sounds, it sounds good. Yeah, it sounds
Margot: It does. Yeah.
AMD: Yeah. Yeah.
Sabeen: So it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out when they see just how far we wanted to go with our bill if they then vote on it. But I think even just getting them all in agreement, being like, yes, there is a problem here, and something needs to be done about it.
That’s just like massive, you know, having, like, it’s the first time sex workers in New Zealand have ever- well not like obviously in the term of NZPC, but the first time that they’ve ever gone to Parliament and been like, this is fucked up. And them all being like publicly and [00:31:00] vocally, yes, it is wrong. Yes, something needs to change.
We all agree on that and that’s like-
AMD: That’s huge.
Margot: Yeah.
AMD: So, so then what, what stage are you in now then? Because that, I mean, you, that’s one of the hardest parts to get over, is to get people that have the power to make a difference, to agree that there needs to be a difference made. So where are you now?
If- you know, only what you can share. I understand that there’s some things that you have to keep private for certain reasons, but what can you share about where you’re at now, what you feel like is coming soon or, or what you envision is going to happen?
Sabeen: So we, like we were at now, we have a draft members bill.
Um, but we want to- like I, um, I think it was earlier I might have mentioned we want to not leave any form of sex work behind on this. So we don’t wanna move forward in this and find ourselves in a situation where strippers now have better right than better rights than full service workers and vice [00:32:00] versa.
So I feel like we’ve done a lot of outreach and have a very thorough understanding of the strip club community and industry right now. We don’t have that same level of detail when it goes to other parts of the industry. So we are trying to do a lot of outreach to make sure that we have that same information informing before we go to any further steps with like, you know, actually progressing with the bill.
Um, and that’s something that I’m super keen to, like publicly advertise on here. You know, if you wanna be, um, knowing like how these ways to get informed or get involved or give feedback, um, get the Fired Up Stilettos email addresses firedupstilettos@gmail.com. Um, and I can add you through our email list and then that way you can be informed of ways you can be like, you know, given information and have opportunity to have feedback on it.
’cause we want it to be informed by the community, for the community.
Mm-hmm.
AMD: I love that. That’s really cool. Okay, so you have some work to do still, basically.
Sabeen: And we’re, we’re willing to take time on it. You know, we’re willing to take time to make [00:33:00] sure it’s done properly and it’s really awesome. The member who is sponsoring the bill is like super willing to be patient with that.
Um, and I think it’s just continuing to build up Fired Up Stiletto’s abilities. ’cause like once, like I said, when we do get this across the line, we wanna be acting in that union capacity to be there to actually action these things for dancers. So we are just trying to like keep getting donations, keep getting more people on board, all those things so that we can get to a point where we’re like really well resourced and really well organized and set up so that we can take on the influx of- hopefully influx of people trying to do something.
AMD: Yeah. And, and what about those of you that got fired? What, how, how are you sustaining that community of people? Or is that like an individual thing? Or did you guys come up with ways to support each other? Like, what was that like?
Margot: I don’t know what that
was like.
Sabeen: I feel like I have an answer for that. Yeah, go.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, um, I think first of all, like it was very [00:34:00] individual. Some of us eventually had to go back to the clubs. Some of us moved to other clubs, some of us moved to other forms of work. Some of us moved to full service
Margot: Moved out of the
country.
Sabeen: Yeah. Um, so there’s a variety. Um, I think we’ve definitely, part of like what we’ve been trying to do with FUS lately is really.
Improve our income streams so that we can start paying our organizing members for their time. ’cause you know, like I think as sex workers, a big thing you believe in is no free labor. . Um, so we’re trying to like get to the point where we can actually make the movement sustainable by paying people for doing it.
Um, we’ve always been really big on providing like financial welfare to people in the community when they’re struggling, whether it’s because of like exploitation of the club or whatever. We are like, I can spot your rent this week. It’s all good. Like, do you wanna stand up to your boss? We’ve got you, we’ve got food.
Margot: That’s about, that’s it really. We kind of set up the, the function of the movement, like be, besides all of the political stuff, which is massive and big part of like the work. There’s also been like a lot of effort to be like a place [00:35:00] for strippers to go, well if not a place, you know, metaphorical place for strip is to go when shit happens because there was nothing like that before. And even, like, I’ve been to NZPC in the past about strip, strip club related issues and it’s just like, oh, well not much you can do.
And you know, um, so we, as you already mentioned, like people just come to us with like whatever problem they’re having in their strip club.
AMD: Totally.
Margot: And then we kind of just. Work. Well, I, I’m taking a break actually, so I don’t do this right now, but we just work with what turns up and that informs then like, oh, this could be applied in the member bill.
’cause there’s things happening that we don’t even know about and don’t know about until they land on our door. And then the money, the money’s, yeah.
Sabeen: I, I think us it’s like really moved beyond that original 19th. Yeah. So like, obviously like we started, but like people have left, people have come, like, we’ve really grown beyond that and we’re trying to be like for the whole community, rather than just like from the 19 that that all started with.
Margot: Yeah.
Yeah.
AMD: I [00:36:00] love that. Thank you for answering. I know that’s a big question.
Sabeen: TAKE BREAK HERE
AMD: So I saw something that happened recently. I saw it on Instagram and it’s some dude named Michael Forbes. And um, I have no idea who that is, but he sounds like he was in some high ranking position assistant to the,
Sabeen: he was the secretary for, um, the Prime Minister.
AMD: Oh, okay.
Margot: A joke.
AMD: So that’s a big deal, right? That’s like the second person in command of the country?
Margot: No, it’s, I think it’s the guy in charge of the media for the Prime Minister. Is that what Chris Secretary was?
Sabeen: Yeah. Yeah. Like managing press releases and all. Yeah,
AMD: Oh he’s the Press Secretary, that’s what you said.
Got it.
Sabeen: Still big deal. Still, it’s still a big deal.
Margot: I’m sure. A very highly paid job.
AMD: So
tell us what’s going on. I’ll just say tell you as much as I know, he got caught by sex workers with content on his phone. He was filming sex workers and civilian women without their consent. Did I get that [00:37:00] right?
Sabeen: Yeah.
So I’m, um, I can’t get into details about why, but I’m actually like quite persoally close to this entire thing that went down.
AMD: Okay.
Sabeen: Um, so he basically is in a booking. Um, the worker discovers while he’s in the shower that he is audio recording her, takes it to, um, brothel owner that actually goes to the police, um, and the police-
through going through his phone, discover that he has several audio recordings of lots of sex workers. He has photos and videos of women in public places where he is like zooming in on their butts in the supermarket. He’s zooming in on their butts in the gym. He’s trying to film up skirts going upstairs.
He also has
Margot: through bedroom
windows.
Sabeen: Yeah. He also has videos of women getting videos and pictures of women getting ready to go out and they’re getting changed in their room and he’s filming from outside and, and of them like topless and everything. So he has,
Margot: it’s
so shady
Sabeen: a shit ton of stuff.
Yeah,
it’s very problematic.
The [00:38:00] issue was, and I still like heavily disagree with the police, the police’s take on this. Um, the police said, well, with audio recordings, unfortunately you only need one party to consent. So, ’cause he recorded it, that’s fine, somehow um, when it comes to public play stuff, it has to kind of meet. What the police deemed to be their criminal threshold of whether or not it’s an illegal video of someone in a video photo of someone in a public place.
The police deemed it to not meet their criminal threshold. Um, when in terms of the women in their private place being filmed, you would need to find those women and they would need to be willing to press criminal charges, and the police did not take it upon themselves to go and make the effort to find those women and ask if they wanted to press criminal charges.
AMD: Did they even
know? Do those women even know that they been filmed?
Sabeen: Yeah. No.
AMD: Okay. I have a lot of questions. Okay. It’s really upsetting. [00:39:00] Is he still in his position?
Margot: No, no, he resigned.
Yeah,
he resigned when the article came out.
Sabeen: But I would say, so a year ago when this all happened and the police found out, he- a year on, gets promoted to this position because it all, just, nothing happens.
And that got sort- seen by the sex worker who was originally involved and she was basically just like really upset, understandably that you see someone get to promoted to that position after what they’ve done with the police being aware and you’d be like. What the fuck. So that was when they decided to go to the media.
The media, um, storm was the only thing that made him step down. Yeah.
AMD: Gotcha.
Sabeen: Mm-hmm.
Margot: And then he said, oh, sorry, it’s because I have trauma.
AMD: That’s what he said.
I have trauma.
Margot: Yeah.
AMD: No, you sound like you’re getting ready to be a serial killer is what it sounds like to me.
Margot: Yeah, it does. And also, I’m sorry, but like this right wing party that we have in government doesn’t allow anyone else to do [00:40:00] crimes because they have trauma.
AMD: Yeah,
Sabeen: exactly.
AMD: So how does this relate to, because it was on your Instagram, I’ve read a lot of stuff, I kind of get it, but I want you to tell the audience how does this relate to the work that y’all are doing? What happened with Michael Forbes?
Sabeen: Um, I don’t know if it necessarily relates because this is much more like the legislation around this is much more criminal.
AMD: Sure.
Sabeen: Extra kind of stuff. Um, and I think it was more that we were just like, we wanted a, we always try to use our platform to highlight issues. So this is like a prevalent issue for a lot of sex workers, but it’s also a prevalent issue for women. You know, like this was a, he didn’t just target sex workers, he targeted women.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: And I think that, um. We just wanted to add to the media storm and the platforming of the story. And so that’s why we were like sex workers share, share your stories about how commonly this happens to you.
Mm-hmm. And
we got huge influx of death. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. [00:41:00] So we just were trying to highlight like how much this isn’t a one off, this is common, this happens often.
Um, and the thing with it being like not meeting the criminal threshold or whatever. Which just bullshit because it’s like this is happening time and time again.
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: Photos, videos, and audio recordings. So stuff like that. Yeah.
Margot: What would
it take for something
to be done about this
Fucking hell. Right,
AMD: right.
Yeah. Well, can’t, I mean, sh is anyone talking about that this should potentially be a another legislation like law being looked at? ’cause I think there’s plenty of-
Sabeen: yeah, I think that’s part of the conversation is with audio, like, you know, that needs to obviously be rectified, but also. What we consider our criminal threshold for charging on this is like clearly not like good enough. Yeah. Um, and the Prime Minister, the only comment he, that I thought was like a worthwhile comment that he made, he was like, you know, the information sharing between agencies clearly isn’t good enough. Because for him to get his position, he needed to have a background check. The background check, [00:42:00] somehow didn’t pick up what the police already had on him.
So that’s obviously quite problematic if you’ve got police aware of like some very serious stuff this man is doing. And then when a background check is being done, there’s no information sharing between those two agencies to be like, yeah, he probably shouldn’t get this job.
AMD: Right. Right. Wow. I don’t know that.
That is wild. Y’all are going through some wild stuff over there and this, and I heard you say earlier, like I’m taking a break and I think that’s great and I, this type of work like requires you to take breaks and be forgiving of yourself and of others and to be patient.
Sabeen: Yeah.
AMD: And to be,
Margot: yeah.
AMD: What’s the word still sometimes and just to like exist without having to like wake up and fight every single day. So like, yeah.
Margot: The break took me
in the end. So now I’m like, now I’m taking the break
Sabeen: and shout out to you. Or like, Margot was a huge driving force behind our entire movement for a really, really long time.
And often, you know, [00:43:00] doing it from a completely, we didn’t have any previous experiences or information to come off of. It was like flying by blind and growing shit at the wall and seeing what stick. And she was really bold, really creative, and also really resilient. So like, shout out
to you. Aw,
Margot: I actually thought recently about, um.
Because it’s, it’s quite, it’s been very hard for me to be like celebrating myself through all of that. You know? I’ve just been like, oh my God, there’s so much to do. Stop ever, and just keep going, make it up, blah, blah, blah. Everything will fine. Yeah. And then I thought about like other, like, I mean, not to hate on other groups, but…
There are a lot of groups that like form to address things that are nowhere near as like prickly and, and messy as what we do. And they don’t really like get anywhere or do much. And I, like, I thought about where we are at now after these last like two and a half years, and I was like, it’s actually fucking impressive.
AMD: Yeah. And you’re, you’re comparing yourself to like more civilian type groups, not other, yeah, yeah.
Sabeen: Just
more activism, activism, union groups that, yeah. Yeah.
AMD: That’s a really [00:44:00] good point. And I, I wonder if a lot of that has to do with like, because we have to Yeah. We have to move fast.
Sabeen: Yeah. I also think that like.
Sex workers are some of the most resilient, creative, used to working under really hard like conditions
Margot: can do anything.
Sabeen: that I know. You know?
Margot: Yeah.
Sabeen: That’s like, that’s your normal situation you tend to be working from. So when you find yourself in something like this, you are like used to pushing through those kind of barriers
Margot: and you’re
used to not taking no for an answer just because someone says so.
Yeah, I think that really helps as well.
AMD: I hear
that. I hear that. Um, you’re all doing incredible work, so we need, first, before we start to close out, I wanna know from you, like, what, what did, what did we miss today? What, what do you really want people to know? What have I not asked you?
Margot: Join your union!
Sabeen: Um, I want people to know. About, like I said earlier, um, that we are trying to do more outreach to all parts of the sex work community to inform our bills. So if you wanna be part of [00:45:00] that. Please, like, message us on Instagram or email us or whatever, so you can be part of that conversation. Um, I want people to know that if you have a problem with your club, reach out to us.
We might be able to help in some kind of way. We’ve like learned a lot of lessons so far. We wanna share that with the rest of our community.
Margot: Mm-hmm.
Sabeen: Um, I want people to know that you don’t have to just keep putting up with this bullshit. Like we actually, you deserve better.
Margot: You deserve better. We all deserve better.
Yes.
AMD: Yeah. That’s awesome. How can people support you? What support do you need?
Sabeen: I think
money is massive.
Margot: Always money.
Sabeen: Yeah, money is massive. Um, I think also supporting our events ’cause they tend to be fundraiser events. Um, I think supporting our protests, like having not just sex workers, but civilians turning up to our protests, like says something to the clubs.
Um, I think it’s also really massive, like just keeping up to date with our work. So like you’ll find opportunities to sign petitions, lobby mps, like donate, whatever that is. Um, and I think I [00:46:00] always heavily encourage any like pole dancer or civilian to realize that privilege doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing.
It’s actually a bit of a superpower for you. Like people are much less likely. To listen to a sex worker if they’re already biased against sex workers. But if you are getting really read up on what we are doing, what we’re about, we’re often advocating and educating about the issues and stigma that sex workers face, then that means you’re really well informed that, and when you encounter that kind of like bullshit and you say it from your place of privilege, people are more likely to listen to you.
AMD: Yeah.
Sabeen: And so you can actually be our little like superpower minions running around and spreading our good word, you know?
AMD: Yes. I really love that. That privilege is,
Margot: don’t afraid to get things
wrong. I feel like that just hamms everything up all the time. And that’s general. It’s just general message, you know?
AMD: Yeah, yeah. Like some people are like, oh, I’m, I’m scared to say something. ’cause I don’t wanna say the wrong thing. Is that what you mean? Yeah.
Margot: Say the wrong thing
will correct you. We’ll all move on. The world will be a better place.
AMD: Yeah, it’s okay to make [00:47:00] mistakes. Yeah,
Margot: yeah,
AMD: yeah.
Sabeen: I love it. I think it’s definitely been really interesting realizing how many people, when you actually get into the crux of why they’re thinking really problematic things like how they need to feel safe in explaining why they’re thinking what they’re thinking, so then you can help them undo their thinking.
But I think if everyone’s too scared to talk to each other and it’s all a little like, then we’re not getting as far. Yeah.
AMD: Agreed.
Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you two are incredible. I’m sure the rest of your team is as equally incredible. Um, and we would like for, you know, you gotta tell everyone where to find you, what your website, your Instagram handle, like social media, all the things.
Sabeen: Yes, so Fired Up Stilettos is our Instagram. Yes. firedupstilettos@gmail.com is our um, email address.
Margot: www.firedupstilettos.com
solitos.com is our website? Yes. Did you already say that stiletto’s is spelled with one L and two T’s? Thank
AMD: you. I always mess [00:48:00] that up. Isn’t that wild?
Um, well this has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us and sharing what you all have been up to is I think it’s really important for more people to know about these movements globally and that to understand that there are, our issues are overlapping and they are global and, um. And I just love hearing stories about people who are trying to make a difference in making our world a better place, um, specifically for sex workers.
So thank you so much for all your tireless work and for being here with us today and sharing your information. It’s so important. I really appreciate your time.
Sabeen: Thank you for having us.
Margot: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate.
Sabeen: Also, I’ve always been a massive fan of the podcast, so when you asked, I was like.
AMD: That’s so lovely to hear.
Thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. Don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe. That greatly helps our podcast and aiming towards our goals. So we appreciate you for listening and for taking [00:49:00] action on our podcast. And so next time, bye
Sabeen: bye
Margot: bye.