Workers’ Rights are Workers’ Rights w/ Brodie Grody

Transcript

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Speaker 1

Welcome to our Portland with Sarah [inaudible] made possible by contributors to friends of Sarah for Portland. Portlanders have everything we need to make radical progress today on emergencies like climate chaos, housing affordability, and staggering inequality. Each episode we'll hear how Sarah plans to be the mayor to lead the city of Portland to a more equitable and sustainable future. And now here's Sarah.

Speaker 2

Hi Portland. It's finally here. We've been working on this for a really long time. May 19th, 2020 if it's before 8:00 PM and you've not turned in that ballot, you know what to do,

Speaker 3

fill it out and turn it in. If you have

Speaker 2

voted, I think you're going to want to settle in for this fun conversation between me and Brody grody, winner of erotic city queen 2019 best breasts in the West 2018 lots of thoughts on her industry. Sex work, its relationship to Portland's economy, what we can be doing as a city to make it more inclusive, more inclusive, safer, more equitable, and even other things like renter's rights, uh, that can help keep Portland a place where folks who are making a living like she is, uh, feel welcome, included and protected by public policy. Without further ado, enjoy our conversation.

Speaker 4

[inaudible]

Speaker 3

hi. Hi there. How are you? Good. How are you? Happy Sunday. Here. I'll turn it a little light. I know I might bring light. I'm like, okay. Hopefully this isn't too much. Now you're like, great, great. You have such a colorful IgE to how wonderful. What great photography. Well, thank you. I tried. Yeah. I love your glasses. Thank you. Thank you. So talk to me about what you are interested in in terms of the Portland mayor's race and politics and what's going on in Portland in general. Oh my God. I know. We only have half an hour. We can, we gotta start somewhere, right? Okay. Well, I guess my main concerns are, um, you know, your platforms about sex workers, like how we're treated our conditions. Um, uh, equality and hiring for, you know, sex workers that are, you know, POC is for sex workers that are trans. Um, um, what you think about foster necessa is really important to us. Um, what you think about like how the conditions are going to be for once we reopen. Like let's start there for, okay, let's start there. You know, as a feminist and an intersectional feminist, I understand that workers' are workers' rights

Speaker 2

and that when you have a group of workers who disproportionately represent a gender, which we know the vast majority of, uh, sex workers are either cis-gendered women, trans women, largely, uh, some trans men. And um, do you know, women of color especially are overrepresented, um, in some of the least protected positions that when I approach this, I'm not going to bring a moral lens to the work. Primarily it's about equity and it's about economics and it's about human rights and it's about who has the right to earn a living in our society and why. And who gets to decide. It's the same thing with reproductive healthcare. Anything. These are basic human rights that shouldn't be discriminated against based on your gender, your occupation, et cetera, so, so forth. Yeah. And so, and things like foster assessed are, it goes back to, you know, when we were talking about rap lyrics in the eighties in terms of policing speech and who are you trying to protect?

Speaker 2

We know that was never about children. We know that was never about that any more than we know FOS. And sista wasn't really about protecting a vulnerable people, right? It's about constraining people from opportunity. And I am a no bullshit person. You know, I really like to cut through that. In terms of when we're talking about public policy, I'm always looking out for the people who are most vulnerable to oppression, who are the most vulnerable to violence. And yet as I watch how we spend our police budget, and I look at the fact that in 2017 52% of the arrests were people experiencing homelessness. Meanwhile, we know that the people who are actually being victims of crimes are primarily women in Multnomah County. And a lot of that is domestic violence, intimate partner violence and sexual assault and yet doesn't get talked about at all. Right? Right. So it's that disconnect between what we talk about valuing and what we actually value. That I'd actually like to correct through some pretty simple policy mechanisms like decriminalizing sex work in our city and full service sex work even because we need to think about who gets to draw that line. Right.

Speaker 3

And when you say full service sex work, I agree that all of that should be decriminalized because as long as it is, then they're going to go through avenues to do what they're going to do either way, but they're not going to be protected. You know, when we're talking old old rap terminology, like pimps, you know, like yeah, these sex workers are going to these people for protection from their quote unquote Johns for a lack of customers, customers and, and you know, and they're going to these terrible people to protect them and they're actually doing more harm and taking more of their income than they should. And, um, yeah, I think if there was some laws in place to protect them and then decriminalize all of it, you know, we, we're definitely going to be a lot safer.

Speaker 2

And there's the, there's the workplace impacts too. Like when you think about when you've decriminalized something and you've started to look at it from the public health impacts. So let's make sure people are safe from a public safety standpoint and from a public health standpoint and having the resources that they need

Speaker 3

between making sure your tools are regulation and not dangerous and wobbly. Um, making sure that when performers, sex workers get injured on the job that we have something to fall back on because I don't know about a lot of people, but most people in my industry have suffered some sort of terrible injury while at work. And we are actually supposed to sign a contract at most places that States that we cannot hold the club liable for any of it. Like, so if I break my arm onstage, I'm out of work for a month, two months, maybe longer, and there goes all my income. I don't have anything to fall back on. So it would be nice to have something in place for that as well.

Speaker 2

One thing that your followers might appreciate then is my support for freelancers, bill of rights. I know many of you aren't even functioning as paid employees with the benefits of those bring, you're often working as contractors. You probably get a 10 99 yeah. And you're paying on, I'm guessing a lot of fees on top of that that are probably not altogether

Speaker 3

places are worse than other times. I'm very, very, very fortunate to work for clubs that understand that we're doing the majority of that work and pulling in the majority of the customers. And so their fees for the house are very low. And then, you know, obviously we tip out according to our bouncers, like our security or our DJs, our bartenders according to what we make. And then the rest we get to take home. But there aren't clubs that will charge you upwards of two, 300 sometimes more dollars just for their house fee or taking a portion of your lap dance money or whatever. And before, you know, you're giving them more than half of your money and if you want to work at that club, you're going to pay.

Speaker 2

And we know that when workers organized, we have more power. And so something like a freelancers bill of rights where, uh, making sure you're getting paid on time to making sure people aren't withholding your payments, making sure that you can negotiate contracts. I also think some things like, um, co-ops so that small business owners and freelancers have access to health insurance. You know, we were hoping about Medicare for all, but I'm guessing it's not going to come around this cyclic. So health insurance is a huge one, and making sure that even if we can't get that at higher levels, that we're getting people into partnerships where maybe they can afford that more so you can buy in. I think it's an important place, not just for people in sex work, but all of our creative industries are people in the gig economy. So many Portlanders are earning their money outside of a 40 hour workweek that maybe has a union job associated with that.

Speaker 3

Totally. Um, so what, uh, kind of, um, regulations do you think should be in place for when we start up? Like how are we going to keep our customers safe? How are we going to keep the girls safe from the virus?

Speaker 2

I mean, I think that's an, I think that I need to hear from you on that because I don't do that work and so I'm not sure. I think the important thing for our policy makers is to be able to listen to the people who know best. I know that the restaurant that I founded back in 2006 went out of business because there was no way to adapt the business model to social distancing. It just would not work. And so I would like to hear, do you have thoughts? I know some of you have been dancing outside through the drive through.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Actually I was going to talk to you about that too. My boss John Bolden, um, asked me to invite you to come through the drive through. Sometimes I bring my bike, I don't have a car you can get, we can bring bikes through. Okay. I'll come through cars, trucks, go-karts, as long as you're wearing a face mask and gloves when he come through on the bike. Cause obviously you're not contained by a car. But yeah, we're going to try to do, um, I don't know if you've ever heard, ever heard a stripper Roky Oh yeah. I live up the street from devil's point neighborhood. I've worked there for 11 years and kind of the OGE of strip Roky out of the dancers now. I've been there all girls. Um, and um, but yeah, we're going to try to do strip rookie drive through addition with the lucky double eats, AKA Uber eats thing.

Speaker 3

Frankie, why do they have Uber eats name was so great. Why did they was, yeah, Uber is the cease and desist and whatever. We complied with it. He'll keep the Instagram name so that people can still find us. But uh, but yeah, going back on, sorry, rewinding a little bit, um, just once we opened clubs back up, like I know that lap dances are not going to be a thing that is going to be able to happen. You can't give a social distance pop dance. No, that's not a thing. You can't get close to somebody at all. Um, so I know people have been joking around about putting us behind plexiglass on stage and having like a slot underneath the bottom to pass the ones and then having some kind of way to sterilize the ones. But also, I mean it would be nice if customers were required to wear gloves and maps no matter where they go. I still see a ton of people at grocery stores, gas stations, banks not wearing gloves and masks. And from what my understanding is, the mask doesn't protect you from other people. It protects other people from you. So if I have that respect for you and I'm covering my mouth and my nose and you're not showing me that same like I actually get angry, like I start feeling really anxious and frustrated every time I go to the grocery store and there's a million people walking around with no care in the world.

Speaker 2

Yeah. My daughter and I actually got harassed. We went up to the WinCo at 82nd and Powell one night. We've been trying to go to the store pretty infrequently but some folks were like what are you hunger games? You're all covered up cause we wear gloves and masks and where we had to ignore them but I thought you're going to have rest me for a beat taking care when you're not taking care. It's just like a cool scene.

Speaker 3

It does cause people stress and like honestly like I feel like if that regulation was in place, like any business you go to, whether it's just going to the gas station or bank or whatever, like I feel like everyone should be required to wear them until the threat is mostly gone. Like I don't understand why some people still aren't complying. Like if you forcibly tell people they have to do it before they walk into a grocery store or wherever, then you know they're going to have to do it cause they need groceries. I don't know. Like I've been to like, you know new seasons or like trader Joe's, I don't go there often but there's tiny little ingredients. Sometimes I need for something and they have lines outside. They are only letting a certain amount of people in. Everybody in line spaced out six feet or more. You are required to wear gloves and masks to even enter the store and they have arrows on the ground directing traffic. That way nobody ends up stuck being too close to each other, but there's way more places that aren't doing that and it freaks me out.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I think being able to use the outside is important. It's something that I've heard from both restaurant owners. I'm even hearing it from artists, musicians, even movies like be us being closed up inside is maybe not going to be the best solution either, so can can we use outdoor space a lot more efficiently? Make room for that. You know, like old school drive in movie theaters, like we could do movies again, but like it has to be outside or, yeah, I don't know. Dining, putting the tables really far apart outside. It's the research violating air conditioning factor, patio stuff. It's already going to be summertime. It's already going to be nice. May as well, like open up the patios and maybe even extend them out a little on like if you can't afford to do that, maybe just place tables out or on the sidewalk and the parking lot space about, I don't know.

Speaker 3

There's everybody's getting really creative with how they're trying to stay in business right now and I think that's really important instead of, Oh sorry, sorry. I was just going to say, do you want to talk as, there's a couple other issues I thought you and your audience might be interested in. One is housing and access to housing. I know folks with nontraditional income sometimes who are working in a lot of cash business have a harder time. We know our cannabis industry is in the same boat in terms of access to banking, but that also affects how people report their income and things like that. Seriously affects like, um, whenever I decide to move from an apartment to another apartment or house or whatever. Um, you're required, you know, to show proof of income. How am I supposed to show people proof of my income when I don't receive paychecks every day?

Speaker 3

What do we need to think about in terms of when we're working at renter rights and rent or protections? Should there be some way that we're thinking about making that accessible more accessible or how can we be thinking about that as policymakers? A little bit. Honestly, what I always end up doing is just have my boss, like kinda like just write me a recommendation of some kind and then I'll usually offer to show them like my last three months of bank statements. But you know, we all have our ups and downs. So sometimes that's not something you want them to see. Um, but yeah, maybe like loosening those sort. Like, you know, having landlords, um, loosen the regulations on that a bit. Like it's pretty ridiculous trying to get into a new place or buy a new car or anything when you don't have proof of income. Like I've heard that a lot, a lot of people like me,

Speaker 2

the thing that we've heard feedback about is policing and the relationship of Portland police to people doing sex work in Portland. Um, do you have any thoughts on that and what we need to be bearing in mind? Is that city of Portland, like which direction we should be headed? What's working, what's not?

Speaker 3

Um, I mean as far as that goes, I mean, I mean I have a friend that's a police officer and he's amazing. Like he handles it really awesome, but he also knows a million people in the industry. Um, there are a lot of police officers that will, um, jump to conclusions or judgments about us because of what we do. And then we end up being in way more trouble trouble or like handled less professionally than what they would handle somebody else. And that feels really disrespectful. And then I feel super marginalized and there's, there's so much I could go on for probably hours about that too. But, um, but yeah, like maybe something in their training to where like they, you know, are, are taught, you know, like, Hey, we're people too and we deserve the same amount of respect you would give anybody. And, you know, imagine if it was your mother or your sister that was being treated this way by a police officer. Would you feel good about that? Probably not. Um, I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 2

De-stigmatization a little bit in some anti-biased training. I hear about that a lot. Anti-biased training, uh, for anybody who deviates maybe from the status quo a little bit, whether they're immigrant or refugee communities or, um, sex workers is one, you know, people who just have come from different places,

Speaker 3

the LGBTQ community, um, like I can go on forever about that. But yeah, de-stigmatize. Portland's already really great at supporting their sex workers for the most part. Um, I'm originally from Kansas and I go home and I can't tell people I'm a stripper there. I will instantly be judged and I don't like that feeling that gives me, of course, that he does, but, uh, Portland's amazing at it and I want them to continue to be amazing at it and just only get better. You know, some people that look down on us and, um, we're just trying to make a living. So what I hear, you're doing a handstand also though.

Speaker 2

I mean this is something where I don't like when our leaders are disconnected from this because this is not just part of our brand, but it's of our advantage, right? Being an inclusive city where everybody feels welcome, they can be their best self, they can innovate, they can create, they can express themselves. Like that freedom of expression is the basis of our economy. It's the basis of our prosperity and it's what's going to make us work. And if you don't fight to protect that, like for everybody, then you don't really have it for anybody.

Speaker 3

Exactly. If even one person doesn't have that right, those basic human rights to just survive and exist and be creative and have their voices heard and be validated like people, one person doesn't feel that way, then it may as well not be for anyone. So

Speaker 2

yeah, really hard. Well, I mean this is where I think it's going to be important this next election cycle. You know, my team has been out there building this amazing grassroots network of small donors that don't usually get to shape how city elections play out, you know? And so now we have a chance to get a, uh, just the people's mayor in the Portland mayor's office and I think it's going to change a lot of things and it's going to feel a lot more authentic because I think we're going to be back on track with the kind of place we actually are.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Bring Portland back to what made it great and that's been weird.

Speaker 2

Or, yeah, I mean, and plus it's really hard to be weird if no one can afford to live here. Like if you're working three gigs just to pay the mortgage or to pay the rent. Yeah.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Like right around the time we had a ton of people moving up from California, I was living in a house with three roommates as four bedroom house. We're paying $1,200 a month. It was over 2000 square foot. Um, so obviously we're each paying about 300 or so a month and then more for bills. And then right around that time my landlord caught wind of everybody else charging so much more and decided to give us a 90 day notice. Went through all the legal avenues he was supposed to, to get rid of us, but lied to us and told us he was selling the house. Um, I accidentally had some mail sent that got over there and I went to go pick it up and I had a small conversation with the people who are now renting the property. They're now paying $2,800 a month or whatever versus the 1200 we were paying. So I was forced to move last, you know, pretty quickly into an apartment in a crappier area of town for way more money and way less square footage. 800 square foot, $1,400 a month all the way it on a hundred and something where, you know, there was a drive by shooting here after we first moved in and a bullet barely missed my head. Like, I shouldn't have to live in more dangerous areas because I can't afford to live closer in and you know, and a smaller space like I have no space for anything. Right.

Speaker 2

It's really tough. I mean, and this is another place where we as Portlanders have to fight for affordability. When I launched this campaign, I really focused on three things, climate change and adaptation. Because if we don't save the planet, we won't have any place to live. But um, you know, affordability and inequality. If we can't make Portland and equitable housing is affordable place, housing is a huge issue and we have to look at it like the emergency that it is. We can't just take it for granted that people are going to want to come here or I think we're going to be pretty soulless to, you know, you'll end up like the Bay area where no one can afford to live there and people are commuting like two hours.

Speaker 3

Yeah, exactly. And I know there's been some regulations like some walls that have been passed that are, you know, trying to control landlords greed. But it's still not enough. My landlord is still here. We'll try to raise it everything he's allowed to, whenever he's allowed to. Even if it is just 60 more dollars or 50 more dollars or whatever it is within that percentage that are, they're allowed to do it. They're still doing it as much as they possibly can. They're still taking as much advantage of people as they can and then, and then regulations about them fixing things. My, my landlord will send some random meth head or somebody who's not licensed to come fix my plumbing and then wants to send them to my, my apartment while I'm home by myself as a woman who worries about these kinds of things, you know, like don't like, there's electrical problems. There's this, there's like a, a gutter that's pulled, it's floods every time it rains out front of my steps where I have to walk right through it. You know, like these kinds of things should be taken care of. Like I shouldn't have to live in poor condition because you're greedy and you want to pinch some pennies here and there. You know, you should be required to hire a professional licensed service to fix these things.

Speaker 2

It's that notion, just like with the workers' rights being applied to everyone, you know, can renter protections or consumer protections. You're paying for something and you deserve to be treated fairly and with proper regulation and everybody does. And we really need to focus on that. It's been challenging. Um, it's been challenging for Portlanders. I saw a couple of questions come into the comments about OSA not protecting dancers. I do think that, you know, when you start to talk about workers' rights, that that's a good place where we can try to have that as an inflection point, but it's going to take leadership, it's going to take leadership de-stigmatizing and it's going to take leadership even talking about this, I mean, I remember when mayor Wheeler said that he wasn't going to take any money from the sex industry when he was running.

Speaker 3

Yeah, definitely. You need to represent the needs of more marginal, marginalized folks. Yes, I totally agree. Um, people of color in this industry are not like, I think you kind of touched on it earlier. They're not necessarily represented in some of the more popular clubs sometimes. Um, I know that all my bosses tried to hire, you know, as many people that they can, but we're small venues so, you know, maybe we're fully staffed already, so it might be difficult for us to hire more people. But um, but yeah, I feel like they should be represented in the safer spaces and given the exact same rights and opportunities as everybody else and say the queer community, you know, like they shouldn't be turned down for a job, you know, any, any club just because, you know, they're not CIS male or female or whatever, you know.

Speaker 2

And it really comes back to what do we look at as crying in Portland, right? When we get to circle all the way back to the beginning, whether it's foster assess sta or sex work, what are you going to look at when people are breaking rules when you're talking about equal employment rights, you know, maybe we should focus more on discrimination and workplace infringements and less on criminalizing people trying to earn a living. I, it's just about balance. And what are your priorities and what are your, um, what are you thinking about in terms of how are you focusing on regulation and who gets protected by that and who gets a free pass or even renters, right. As opposed to focusing on the landlord protections and yeah, that interviewing both sexual versus

Speaker 3

for everyone, you know, everybody should be treated with the same respect everyone. And um, and then yeah, I think it would be, uh, one of my friends brought up a good point. I think it would be a really great idea for you to, um, possibly interview, uh, uh, um, African American black POC sex worker in the industry too, because I think there's definitely a lot of them out there that have, would have a much better perspective on that than I would because obviously I'm white, but, um, but yeah, their voices need to be heard too, you know, and, and a lot of times they are silenced and, um, um, rockets saying, uh, dances are not covered by OSHA regulations. That is also true. You know, like we need to be protected and made sure we're safe to, you know, um, I've know so many girls that have ended up getting like staph infections at work because love you to Mallory. Um, but yeah, so many, so many girls that I know that I've gotten staph infections or you know, just from unclean, unsafe work conditions or injured because of hole rips out of the ground. Like these are things that need to be addressed. Like we need to be made. Absolutely made sure that we're safe in our workplaces and then not hold responsible for taking care of ourselves once and paying for the medical bills once we've been injured or diseased or whatever at work. You know,

Speaker 2

and I'm here, I'm seeing one of your, um, uh, participants is asking the question about the regulation of health and safety and the clubs and yeah, that sort of thing. Regulatory framework in which we're focused on protecting workers rights and if we can make it the larger issue of focusing on protecting workers' rights. And that extends to people in the gig economy extend to the Uber and Lyft drivers. It extends to the delivery drivers who are delivering the Instacart. We need to make sure that our people who are working in Portland are safe and never with now more than ever

Speaker 3

like it. I mean it should always be important, but it's even more important than it's ever been to make sure everybody's safe and protected.

Speaker 2

So maybe this will be a good opportunity where we try to hold ground in terms of personal health and safety, but also making sure we're thinking about economic wellbeing and freeing to freedom from oppression and freedom, freedom from criminalization and freedom from things that make life unnecessarily costly for some people versus others. So in this, yeah, I agree with you

Speaker 3

and definitely Mallory. Um, she made a good point too. It needs to be extended to sex workers that are not in the club as well. And I, I touched on that earlier. I don't know if you heard me, but you know, same thing, making sure that not only is sex work outside of the club decriminalized, but also that there are regulations there for them to be safe. You know, like free protection, free condoms, free birth control. And I know there's some places like planned Parenthood help out with that, but um, you know, and just making sure they're safe without having to rely on somebody like a pimp to keep them safe. Like almost all sex work should be, you know, safe. It should be safe if that's what you so choose to do.

Speaker 2

And that's really the basis of what we're trying to talk about here in this next election cycle. Before we go, I just want to point folks toward that Sarah, 20 twenty.com/public safety, a policy framework so that we can, um, get the conversation going about how this is going to play out. But I did want you and the folks working in your industry to know that I'm behind you and making sure that your rights are protected. I'm behind you as workers. I'm behind you in making sure that the Portland police Bureau isn't adding to the burdens in your life. That they're truly keeping people who are vulnerable in this city safe. We don't want anyone endangered by Portland police or having, you know, being issued with fines or costly criminal procedures that cost us all a lot of money. So I will commit to talking with you as we put policies in place. Hopefully we can work together because one of the things is about getting a people's movement is y'all have to do the work and I was just support you and get it done cause you know better than I do.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Like I said, I've been in this industry for 17 years. Only 11 of them, it's been in Portland. But um, yeah, somebody was saying that, um, it would be nice if, uh, you could plan to have a dialogue with members of the community before making policies also that have wide reaching effects.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And that's going to be important. And this is what this relationship building is all about. Even this dialogue.

Speaker 3

Well, as a sex worker, I would love to build a stronger community, like stronger communication with the community as well. Like if you have, the best way to de-stigmatize sex work is to have conversations with people about it. Like a lot of people only know what they see in movies or on TV shows and we're not represented in the best light on a lot of those. Um, we're represented as druggies as you know, people that like will drug men and steal from them or murder somebody and then there's a debacle or whatever. Like we're not represented

Speaker 2

well in the media usually or on TV, whatever and movies. And it would be nice to actually be able to sit down with the community members and anybody who has questions about what we do can finally understand where we're coming from and then possibly, you know, respect us. That would be great. Well this is where I think if we get an a working class mayor who, um, has sex workers on her block and bartenders on her block life with everyday Portlanders and know that we all make our livings in a lot of ways and that there's a lot of vulnerable people who need protecting, then we'll make it happen. Not to mention like we've stimulate the economy more. Yes, you do want to in Portland. Do you feel how much money strippers spend eating out of movies, going to tanning salons, getting our hair done, our nails done, whatever. Like we are a huge industry in this town. Like you get rid of sex work in this town, the whole economy would die. Well there you go.

Speaker 2

I hope you get back to work soon. I know coven has been hard on everyone and just take good care and be safe out there. Remember election day is Tuesday so everybody who's going to vote, they got validated by 8:00 PM on Tuesday. Yes. Get your butts out there and vote and we're not going anywhere anytime soon. That's right. Gallery. Yup. I look forward to hearing from you in the future. I would love to work with you more on the subject and definitely I'd be down to talk to anybody that wants to talk about it. You know like I'll come home, I'll bike through for the stripper karaoke or the streamer through the drive through before we get that organized. My boss will treat you like royalty when you come through. All right, I'll bring us there after you take care. Thanks for hosting me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You're so sweet. It's lovely to meet you. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye bye. Have a good day. This has been a production of friends of Sarah for Portland.