Seven women have taken a case against Calendar Girls seeking a declaration of their employment status.
Seven women have taken a case against Calendar Girls seeking a declaration of their employment status.
The owners of the Calendar Girls strip clubs have been forced to take down posts identifying dancers suing the firm.
Seven women are currently pursuing an application in the Employment Court for a declaration of their employment status.
A non-publication order was issued in May suppressing their identities afterthey raised concerns about their safety and damage to their reputations due to the stigma attached to the work they had been doing.
One of the women has now returned to court alleging breaches of the order by Calendar Girls NZ Ltd, the company named as the defendant in their case.
Chief Employment Court Judge Christina Inglis hastily scheduled a hearing this week to hear the woman.
Women at the Wellington Calendar Girls club were told to clear out their lockers after attempting to bargain collectively in 2023. Photo / Google maps
“I accorded urgency to the application given the nature of the alleged breaches and the concerns that had underpinned the making of the orders of non-publication in the first place,” the judge said in a recent judgment.
Lawyers get together
The urgent hearing was set down for Thursday but was cancelled after lawyers for both sides got together and agreed non-publication orders should be respected.
“The defendants confirm that they have removed all offending posts,” Judge Inglis said.
However, her judgment did not detail what was in the posts.
The seven women are seeking a declaration that they were employees of Calendar Girls NZ Ltd under the Employment Relations Act 2000.
Being an employee, rather than a contractor, gives entitlement to a wider range of legal protections, including minimum conditions, protection from discrimination, health and safety, and the ability to bargain collectively.
In 2023, dancers from the Wellington Calendar Girls club attempted to bargain collectively after being offered a contract that they said was “manipulative”.
Nineteen were told to clear out their lockers and not to come back to work through a Facebook post after asking for changes to the way they were being paid.
In seeking non-publication orders in the current case, filed in the Wellington Employment Court, the seven women raised several concerns about having their identities made public.
Women in the clubs use a professional name while working there, and are instructed not to give their real names to customers.
Chief Employment Court Judge Christina Inglis has made a non-publication order over the women's names and identifying details. Photo / George Heard
However, their case in the Employment Court has been taken using their real names.
The women involved in the case feared publication of their identities would “severely impact” their employment and housing prospects, and their ability to travel.
They said the stigma attached to their work at Calendar Girls had already led to judgments about their morality and respectability.
The women are all young and fear damage to their reputations and the impact on their families.
They also said they had safety concerns about former clients and members of the public.
Dismissed from a government job
One of the women is a member of a church and is worried about others in the congregation finding out.
Others have had tenancy applications declined, and another woman said she was dismissed from a government agency when it became known she had worked in the sex industry.
Judge Inglis has now made orders instructing Calendar Girls not to disclose the names, identifying particulars, or photographs of the seven women who have taken the case.
She said this applied to “all forms of communication, including oral, written, electronic and any other medium”.
The substantive case has been set down to be heard in a five-day fixture in February 2026.
Calendar Girls NZ Ltd is a Christchurch-based company which operates clubs in Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington and Queenstown.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.
