Should Sex Workers Be Allowed to Unionize?

Introduction

The subject of sex worker legalization and unionization is highly controversial. In most countries in the world, prostitution is considered illegal or is extremely limited by law, making it a dubious and shadowy practice. Discussions about the sex industry typically revolve around morality, human rights, and the protection of individuals willingly or unwillingly involved in the industry.¹ There is also the dimension of patriarchal dominance and its influence on how societies view sex, women, and industry. Despite legalization and unionization promising protection to certain sex workers, the commoditization of sex should be opposed, as its consequences have dangerous and far-reaching implications for women and society.

Arguments Pro Unionization

As it stands, in countries that have prostitution, pornography, and other forms of sex work legalized, employees have few ways of protecting themselves against their employers. Due to the nature of the industry, abuse and exploitation are much more likely to happen.² The ability to unionize and represent the interests of individual workers as a collective action is claimed to enable better standards of care and safety, as well as higher salaries.³ The proponents of unionization also argue that it would reduce human trafficking since the legal status of sex workers will be well-rounded and equated to that of employees in other professions.

Arguments Against Unionization

, The opposition to unionization, typically opposes its legal status as well. They argue that protections offered by unionization and legalization do not cover the majority of sex workers, 90% of which are migrants from other countries.⁴ If anything, legalization laws allow traffickers to operate under the pretense of legality. This counters the argument for unions, as illegal migrants would not benefit from them because of their questionable status. Another idea relates to the definition of work in the legal field. It is argued that sex does not qualify as work by existing definitions and does not solicit forming unions.⁵ Finally, there is the moral issue of reducing sex from a sacred consensual act between people to something akin to an exercise. This particular argument is popular among religious confessions.

Personal Impressions and Thoughts

While the majority of the arguments leveraged by either side are debatable, the prospect of treating and viewing sex as work has far-reaching implications from a legal standpoint. Equating sex to a service rather than a personal, intimate connection paves the way to the exploitation of women by the patriarchy by instituting capitalist relations between sexes. It will bolster the willingness of the poor and desperate to sell their bodies and their dignity to the rich to make ends meet.⁶ Worse, there is the implication that unionization and the treatment of sex as work may have on sex-related crimes.⁷ If sex is perceived as work, it will lead to the trivialization of rape victims and their experiences. They will be viewed not as victims of the most heinous crime imaginable but rather as people who were forced to offer a service for free. Such normalization cannot be allowed to continue and has to be opposed.

Conclusions

The arguments for unionization of sex workers go deeper than just the issues surrounding particular life choices and have broader implications on society. While having a potential for short-term improvement, unionization and subsequent commoditization of sex can result in greater exploitation of women in the long term. Therefore, the unionization of sex workers and the legalization of prostitution should not be made legal.

Bibliography

Albert, Lumina S. “Lifting the Veil: The Unintended Consequences of the Legalization of Prostitution.” Human Rights Quarterly 43, no. 7 (2021): 659-682.

Antonopoulos, Georgios A., and Georgios Papanicolaou. Organized Crime: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018.

De Wildt, Roos. Post-war Prostitution: Human Trafficking and Peacekeeping in Kosovo. New York: Springer, 2019.

Ng, Yew-Kwang. Markets and Morals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Footnotes

1. Yew-Kwang, Ng, Markets and Morals (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 51.
2. Yew-Kwang: 56
3. Ibid.
4. Lumina, Albert, “Lifting the Veil: The Unintended Consequences of the Legalization of Prostitution,” Human Rights Quarterly 43, no. 7 (2021): 661.
5. Lumina: 662.
6. Roos de Wildt, Post-war Prostitution: Human Trafficking and Peacekeeping in Kosovo (New York: Springer, 2019): 39.
7. Georgios A. Antonopoulos, and Georgios Papanicolaou, Organized Crime: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018): 77-78.