Montreal strippers plan walkout for F1 weekend

Montreal strippers are planning to walk off the job on one of the busiest nights of the year, demanding they be recognized as employees entitled to the same protections as other workers.

Planned May 23 during Formula One weekend, the sex workers’ strike will see some workers at strip clubs and massage parlours skip work in an attempt to secure better conditions.

In Montreal, most strip club dancers aren’t paid a salary.

Instead, they rely on tips to earn a living — and are often required to shell out their own money to cover a “bar service fee.”

Céleste Ivy, a Montreal stripper, said she’ll pay anywhere from $40 to $100 per night to dance.

Sometimes, she’ll earn less in tips than she pays the club.

“It happens to every worker every year that we’ll go home and find ourselves in the red,” said Ivy, also a member of the Comité autonome du travail du sexe (CATS), the group planning the strike.

“Since we’re not salaried employees, we don’t have access to the protections that other workers usually have,” she said.

Posters used to advertise a sex work strike planned for May 23, 2026. CATS

Speaking to The Gazette Wednesday, Ivy said she hadn’t worked for several weeks after injuring herself in the workplace.

She said injuries were “common” among strippers, who dance in high heels on uneven floors.

Were Ivy a regular employee, provincial labour rules would entitle her to paid leave. But since she’s classified as a self-employed worker, she’s off without pay.

Montreal strippers haven’t always worked without a salary.

Francine Tremblay, who left the job in 1988 and is now a professor studying the sex industry at Concordia University, said she earned an hourly wage throughout her career as a stripper.

“I worked in the industry for almost 20 years and I never worked a day without having a base salary,” she said.

Tremblay still benefits from the protections afforded to her at the time, receiving reimbursement for the hearing aids she needs after working two decades in noisy venues.

No longer treated as employees, Montreal strippers “don’t get any protection in any way,” Tremblay said.

Without pay, “you don’t experience yourself as a legitimate worker,” she said. “You’re kind of invisible.”

Like others in her industry, Ivy said she encounters sexual harassment from clients. “Most of the time when we talk to our bosses, they’ll take the client’s side and not help us at all,” she said.

Others work in unsanitary conditions, Ivy said. Bosses who don’t see them as employees don’t tend to take complaints seriously, she said.

Sex workers at massage parlours face many of the same issues as strippers, Ivy said. But since they operate in something of a legal grey zone — sometimes performing sexual acts that aren’t legal — massage parlour workers are often afforded even less protection than strippers, she said.

Ivy said she didn’t know how many sex workers would walk off the job May 23. Founded in 2019, CATS is growing, she said, but remains a small organization.

But she said the group was encouraging sex workers to convince colleagues to join the walkout.

“If they decide to walk out, the bosses will freak out,” Tremblay said. Formula One weekend “is when the bars make their money.”

“This is the first time that we’re being vocal about our concerns,” Ivy said. “We want to be heard. We want our work to be recognized as work.”

Jack Wilson

I've reported for The Gazette since 2024. I love covering a good politics story, but any day I tell Montrealers something new about the world around them feels like a good one. Got a tip for me? Email me at [email protected]

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