"I love my job. Everyone's relaxed. There's no bitchiness. We all work
together as a team," says 27-year-old Julia. "I was sick of being
stuck in dead-end retail jobs, earning bad money and working for
lazy, spineless managers. Why subject myself to a dead end, bland
work life when I can go to my new job, be myself, earn a good wage
and then go home happy?" 
Minutes later, she is dancing on stage at Majingo's, a table- dancing
club in London Docklands. Twirling around the spotlight pole, she
undoes her dress so that her top half is naked. Then, as the song
comes to an end, she pulls up her skirt, showing her bottom.
Afterwards, she puts her dress back on, smiles and sits down to carry
on chatting with some of the other table dancers who work at the
club. 
With its poles, low lights and embarrassed early-evening clientele,
the club I work in looks like any other table-dancing club. However,
it is one of only three British clubs to have recognized a trade
union. Frances and the 25 other table dancers who work there are
protected by our strict code of conduct. If they are treated badly,
they can get on the phone to the GMB, a general trade union with
700,000 members. 
Sex workers won the right to become members of the GMB last year.
Since then, 150 prostitutes, escorts, strippers, chat-line operators,
sex-shop assistants, table dancers, porn stars and glamour models
have joined. Last week, the GMB congress in Blackpool voted
overwhelmingly to call for a national debate on the legal rights and
working conditions of sex workers. 

London
E14 9SH