PAHRUMP — Sex workers at one of Nevada’s legal brothels are unionizing with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), organizers told The Nevada Independent on Tuesday. If successful, it would be the first time brothel workers unionized in the U.S.

The effort came after the brothel requested the workers sign a new contract that would give the business perpetual control over workers’ intellectual property rights and power of attorney.

A majority of the brothel’s 74 sex workers, or courtesans, have agreed to join the union. Managers of the brothel, Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump, have fired at least three of the workers involved in the union drive since last week and have threatened other women with termination if they do not sign the new contracts, according to union lawyers.

To unionize, the workers must first prove to federal labor authorities that they are employees rather than independent contractors, who have limited bargaining rights. Then they will vote on joining the union and begin negotiating a new contract.  

Sheri’s Ranch, which was established in 2001 and is owned by former Chicago homicide detective Chuck Lee, maintains that the workers are not eligible for collective bargaining. 

“We respect the right of individuals to express their views on workplace structure,” Communications Director Jeremy Lemur told The Indy in a written statement. “At the same time, Sheri’s Ranch remains confident in the longstanding legal and regulatory framework that has supported independent contractors operating their own businesses in association with the resort for decades.” 

The brothel introduced the new contract to courtesans beginning in late December, insisting workers sign it. The contract presents “potential harms that are immeasurable,” said Jupiter Jetson, an adult film actress and licensed sex worker who worked at the brothel from 2018 until her termination last week. 

It included a clause demanding courtesans grant Sheri’s Ranch “irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual” rights to any content they produce while staying at the brothel.

It could be an especially damaging requirement given how many of Nevada’s legal sex workers are also adult film actresses or social media personalities, Jetson said. Nevada is the only state in the union where prostitution is legal in certain counties.

Sex workers’ intellectual property rights have become even more crucial to their livelihoods as sites such as OnlyFans have rapidly grown in popularity. 

During a November meeting, Jetson said brothel management complained to her that “they were losing out on money that they were owed” for courtesans’ on-site content creation.

But she said she believes that the perpetual content rights the contract would give to Sheri’s Ranch go far beyond that. Jetson said the contract would give the brothel the ability to sell videos or photos of courtesans without their permission and create AI-generated content featuring their images.

“They could be selling my videos until 50 years after my death,” Jetson said. What the brothel had described as “tying up loose ends and fixing clerical errors” through a new contract was really an attempt to control “anything that we do while we are under the employ of Sheri’s,” she said.

The contract also includes a clause that says if courtesans produce intellectual property and fail to immediately transfer the rights to Sheri’s Ranch, the brothel has the power of attorney to transfer ownership to themselves. 

Since launching their organizing drive — during which Jetson and a colleague solicited courtesans’ signatures on-campus at Sheri’s Ranch in late January — their frustrations have grown in the wake of what they describe as management’s retaliatory actions. 

Lawyers for CWA, a 700,000-member strong affiliate of the AFL-CIO that represents entertainment and media employees, submitted a request Tuesday to the Arizona regional office of the National Labor Relations Board asking for an emergency bargaining order and an injunction against the brothel’s termination of three courtesans. 

The request, which was reviewed by The Indy, described alleged unfair labor practices and presented evidence that the brothel’s “response to the organizing drive has been swift and severe,” pointing to management’s refusal to recognize the union and the fired courtesans.

Last Thursday, the brothel fired the union’s primary organizer, Jetson, and Paloma Karr, another worker who pushed back on the contract. Neither of the women were told why they were terminated. 

The injunction request also says a third courtesan, Adalind Gray, was told upon arriving at Sheri’s Ranch on Tuesday she and other courtesans would be fired unless they signed the new contracts, which union lawyers said have been amended since December to include even more onerous requirements. 

Gray initially refused to sign the contract but eventually did, writing “under duress” next to her signature. She was fired later that day.

What comes next

Lawyers for the CWA informed Sheri’s Ranch last Wednesday that a majority of courtesans wanted to unionize. They filed a petition Thursday with the regional office of the federal labor board.

The first step in the unionization process is demonstrating the brothel’s courtesans are employees rather than independent contractors, according to Marc Ellis, president of the Nevada branch of CWA, Local 9413.

A lawsuit filed in federal court in 2019 challenged the classification of courtesans at Sheri’s Ranch as independent contractors. It was settled out of court in 2023. 

Union representatives argue the labor standards and practices at brothels qualify courtesans as full-time employees, affording the women the right to collectively bargain without fear of termination. 

Lemur, the Sheri’s Ranch spokesperson, said redefining the classification would change a longstanding industry standard.

“Any shift away from independent contractor status would fundamentally change the nature of that independence and the level of personal control individuals have over how they work,” he wrote in his statement.

The courtesans at Sheri’s Ranch are the first group of legally licensed sex workers to unionize in U.S. history, organizers said. Jetson and Karr created a website to raise awareness about their cause, which states their demands as “safety on the job, better working conditions, and control over their own futures.” 

There’s little precedent for unionization efforts among sex workers, save for unions formed at a San Francisco strip club in 1996 and at a Los Angeles strip club in 2023. Both clubs have since shut down. 

Ellis told The Indy that the contract Sheri’s Ranch presented to its courtesans featured items that would normally be negotiated between employees and employers. 

“They can’t just blanket state that they’re going to do this,” Ellis said. “If it’s part of a collective bargaining agreement and they got fairly compensated for it, then it’d be something I’d be willing to entertain.”

Broader desire to give sex workers autonomy

While the unionization efforts emerged because of the new contract, Jetson outlined a range of other practices she said generally limit courtesans’ autonomy while living in the brothel.

Sex workers pay rent to reside at the brothel for one to three weeks at a time. During those periods, their laptops are confiscated, email addresses are controlled and monitored and freedom of movement is largely dependent on managers’ approval. She also said their rooms can be randomly searched and that audio of workers’ negotiating sessions with clients is monitored.

“I call it a spicy panopticon,” Jetson said, referring to an 18th century prison design.

She said she and her colleagues had never discussed challenging any of these practices, in part because of the legal fragility of the industry.

Jetson believes Sheri’s Ranch’s policies are relatively standard among legal brothels. She had signed only one minor update to her contract since joining the brothel eight years ago. That was to address a new social media policy. 

“There’s a small but vocal minority of people who think sex work in every form is nonconsensual, that there’s no way to do it ethically,” Jetson said. “I disagree, but we have to be mindful that any pushback to fight for a fair workplace is going to result in that small minority of people loudly saying, ‘Well, then we just have to shut it all down.’”

But she said that her push for the union is not aimed at punishing her former employer but making it better. 

“I have loved my job,” Jetson said. “I’ve loved my career. I just want to be able to do it while still maintaining ownership of my likeness and my future.”

Ellis, the president of the local CWA chapter, said he was not yet sure if other workers at the state’s approximately 19 legal brothels are facing similar issues. 

“If they are, I’ll gladly organize them,” Ellis said.