‘Help’ for the working gals

Name one thing that would help Nevada’s exotic dancers.

You might suggest a free consultation with an investment banker, advising them how to allocate their hefty current incomes to prepare for their golden years.

You might suggest simplification (and the application of common sense) to the conflicting, ever-changing rules pertaining to what they can and cannot do and what they may and may not be wearing when they do it. (G-strings but not shorts? Is that a joke?)

But not many people would put at the top of the list: “Make the clubs treat them as employees.”

Yet Tucson, Ariz., attorney Mick Rusing wants to bring a class-action lawsuit requiring just that change. And Thursday the state Supreme Court endorsed his efforts, allowing him to proceed with a lawsuit that would require Las Vegas clubs to classify strippers as employees and pay them wages.

Not only that, the court allowed strippers to be named as an “opt-out” class. That is to say, every such dancer is a plaintiff in this lawsuit unless she hears about it and takes specific action to get herself excluded.

Currently, most such performers actually pay the clubs a fixed fee for the right to perform, in exchange for which they get to keep their tips — a lucrative arrangement.

Employees are workers who show up at fixed times to perform established duties. The law generally requires employers to pay for worker’s compensation insurance to cover them should they get injured on the job, unemployment insurance, etc.

Theaters do not buy such coverage for actors in road shows that play the town for three days before moving on — a pretty close match to the way many strippers work.

While, on the other hand, there are plenty of precedents for employers taking charge of tips received by their employees — pooling them and doling them out as they see fit. Do these dancers really want to share their tips with bartenders, bouncers and dishwashers, all without their say? Do they realize that as “employees” their tips would likely be counted for them and reported to the IRS? How many of these working gals were even consulted before Mr. Rusing headed for court with his get-rich-on-the-contingency-fees scheme?

(In fact, Girls of Glitter Gulch attorney Mario Lovato argued in court that Mr. Rusing had to hunt for five years to find a Nevada dancer — actually a moonlighting legal secretary — to serve as his “Jane Doe” plaintiff.)

Yes, one of the great things about America is that anyone can go to court. But it should be a basic requirement that before any “class action” suit is allowed to proceed, the likely results must be shown to actually benefit the supposed “plaintiffs” — especially when there’s no reason to believe most of them even know what’s being sought on their behalf.

Nevada strippers as oppressed piece-workers who would be better off laboring for a fixed hourly wage?

Thursday’s ruling overturns an earlier, sensible decision by then-District Judge Nancy Saitta, now a Supreme Court justice, who did not participate.

The high court should have laughed this one straight out the door.