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Sex worker unionisation: an exploratory study of emerging collective organisation
Author(s) -
Gall Gregor
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
industrial relations journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.525
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1468-2338
pISSN - 0019-8692
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2338.2007.00436.x
Subject(s) - phenomenon , extant taxon , sex workers , salient , sex work , work (physics) , exploratory research , political science , sociology , political economy , law , social science , engineering , biology , demography , mechanical engineering , population , physics , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , immunology , research methodology
In a number of Western economies in the last two decades, sex workers have begun to organise themselves in, and be organised by, trade unions for the first time. This article examines the salient processes and outcomes of this phenomenon. It firstly explores the influence of the prostitutes’ rights movements and the emergence of the ‘sex work’ discourse where the selling of sex and sexual services are regarded as a form of ‘emotional’ or ‘erotic’ labour. The advances in sex worker union organisation are recounted before assessing the forces leading to unionisation and those forces that act as impediments to unionisation. The conclusion of the article is that extant sex worker unionisation is a fragile and embryonic phenomenon.