As Grand Prix parties take over the city and tourists pour in, Montreal's strip clubs are about to be met with pushback from the workers who keep them running.
The Sex Work Autonomous Committee (SWAC), a Montreal-based organizing group, is calling for a general strike on Saturday, May 23, targeting strip clubs and massage parlours across the city. The action is timed deliberately: F1 weekend is the most lucrative period of the year for club owners, and SWAC says that's exactly the point.
SWAC is calling for a boycott of the Grand Prix. www.facebook.com
"The clubs are at their busiest, making it the most lucrative period of the year for our boss," the group wrote in its strike announcement. "This is our chance to threaten that income and affect them when it hurts the most."
Why they're striking
Some workers will refuse to show up entirely on Saturday, while others plan to refuse paying the bar fee, a nightly charge dancers pay just to work a shift.
That fee sits at the centre of SWAC's demands. Under the current model, dancers in Montreal are classified as independent contractors, meaning they pay to enter the club each night rather than receiving a wage. The bar fee wasn't always part of the equation -- it only became standard practice in the 2000s, and according to SWAC, it has been climbing ever since. During Grand Prix weekend, clubs ramp it up further.
According to SWAC, one Montreal club charged $110 per night during last year's F1 weekend, and at an average of 60 dancers per night, that works out to roughly $33,000 in bar fees alone, before late fees and penalties.
SWAC also points to overbooking as a compounding problem. During Grand Prix weekend, clubs schedule more dancers than usual to maximize revenue, but without adding extra security. The group says this leads to increased violence against workers during an already chaotic stretch.
"Sometimes you leave in the negative because you paid more to work than you end up making," said Kit, a dancer who has worked Montreal strip clubs full time for three years, in an interview with the Canadian Press. "Nobody should be paying to work, especially if you're not receiving a wage."
What they want
SWAC's demands go beyond the bar fee. The group is calling for formal worker status for dancers and massage parlour workers, which would come with protections like sick leave, a safe working environment, an end to hiring and scheduling discrimination, and access to Quebec's workplace safety board. They're also calling on the federal government to fully decriminalize sex work in Canada. Currently, selling sex is legal, but purchasing sexual services and operating a brothel are criminal offences.
How they got here
The committee has been meeting monthly since 2019. In early 2025, they published a zine called "Sex Workers Unite! A Manifesto About Workplace Whoreganizing" as a how-to guide on workplace organizing, then followed it up with a Sex Workers Assembly. The response made clear that people wanted a concrete action to channel their energy into. The Grand Prix strike is the result of that momentum.
"The strike planned for F1 is only one goal in a much larger and longer struggle for sex workers to be recognized as workers and provided basic human and worker's rights," the group wrote.
The risks involved
SWAC acknowledges that striking carries real consequences. Workers could face retaliation, including being let go or blacklisted from clubs. The group points to US examples, as both the Lusty Lady in San Francisco and Star Garden in Los Angeles saw militant workers fired during unionization efforts, though in both cases that backlash ultimately strengthened solidarity and led to collective agreements.
Some Montreal sex workers have also said they won't participate simply because they don't want to miss out on the income the weekend brings.
Grand Prix weekend runs May 22 to 24.
