A former strip club dancer has claimed her employer didn’t pay dancers properly and forced them to share tips with other employees, including bouncers and DJs.
Priscilla Rosado-Cruz, who worked at Platinum Dolls club in Lexington, Kentucky, is seeking at least $100,000 (£72,618) in damages through a federal lawsuit, as well as more fees and back pay.
Ms Rosado-Cruz is claiming the club she was employed at didn't pay dancers the required minimum wage or overtime for working more than 40 hours a week.
The lawsuit is also seeking to act as a collective action for other dancers who have worked at the club over the past three years.
According to the lawsuit, this could be more than 100.
Ms Rosado-Cruz claims that the Kentucky club improperly classified the dancers as independent contractors and not employees, in an attempt to avoid paying them fully, the Daily Star reports.
The dancers allegedly didn't receive their hourly wages and only tips, according to the complaint.
It claims that the dancers should have been paid the federal minimum wage of $2.13 (£1.55) an hour for tipped employees, as well as overtime.
The club has also been accused in the suit of forcing Ms Rosado-Cruz and other dancers to share their tips with other employees, including bouncers, DJs and managers.
John P. Kristensen, a Los Angeles attorney representing Ms Rosado Cruz along with Liz J. Shepherd, a lawyer in Louisville, said the girls ended up "subsidising the club".
Kristensen said there had been a number of similar lawsuits around the country, which involved strip clubs claiming dancers were independent contractors.
He went on to say that these arguments had been "summarily rejected" in a number of courts, the Lexington Herald Leader reported.
In a 2019 ruling, a federal judge in Georgia said courts looked at several factors when determining whether a worker was a contractor or an employee.
This included how much control the business had over how the workers did his or her job.
Michael L. Brown, a U.S. District Judge, said recently that "other courts have considered the relationship between adult entertainers and the clubs where they perform, nearly universally finding adult entertainers to be employees.”
People answering calls to Platimum Dolls said the club did not have any comment on the lawsuit.