SWU Manifesto
Sex Workers’ Union (SWU) is a grassroots trade union that emerged out of the Women’s Strike of International Women’s Day on March 2018. We were created in conjunction with our sister organisation Decrim Now, and are supported by X:Talk. SWU represents all sex workers in the industry from full service sex workers (FSSWers), strippers, BDSM workers, online content creators, cam workers, and porn performers. SWU is entirely member-led, where all of our members, our committee and reps, and our branch organiser are sex workers: we are the community we represent.
SWU does not represent managers, bosses or profiteers.
SWU supports the full decriminalisation of all forms of sex work and work alongside other peer-led sex worker organisations to reach this goal.
SWU is a labour rights movement, not a service provider. In remaining true to our grassroots origins we encourage all members to get involved in the movement through partaking in our campaigning and organising. The stronger and more proactive our membership - the stronger our union!
AIMS
SWU aims to support not only our members but also the wider sex working community through our work. SWU’s existence is inextricable from the wider sex workers’ rights movement and community.
Our aims include:
Promote the rights, safety and justice of sex workers* working in every aspect of our industry. This includes but is not limited to: sex workers of all ethnicities, genders, sexualities and disabilities, and includes undocumented migrant sex workers
Fight for better working conditions for all sex workers through winning workplace rights and protections for our members
Enable sex workers to take power into their own hands through sharing knowledge and skills that will allow them to organise for better and safer working conditions
Educate and empower sex workers by sharing knowledge about workplace rights, legislation and policies that impact our working and our human rights
To remain member-led: all of our campaigns must come from the wider membership or the movement as a whole
To structure ourselves horizontally and work collectively to the best of our abilities
To maintain a non-judgemental, welcoming and compassionate environment in all of the spaces we facilitate and curate, online and in-person
Build solidarity with not only other sex worker organisations but other marginalised communities, grassroots movements and precarious workers
To build community within our own industry by connecting sex workers with each other, and sharing vital information that will keep us safe
To frame our work via a labour rights perspective rather than a moral one
To unlearn whorephobia, where members of SWU acknowledge the harms caused by internalised and externalised whorephobia, and actively seek to unlearn the negative stereotypes, stigma, and marginalization sex workers face, and understand that there are no forms of sex work that is better than another.
*SWU defines ‘sex worker’ as someone who sells their own sexual labour.
VALUES
As a trade union, SWU’s values remain deeply entrenched within a workers’ rights framework. As sex workers, SWU sits on the intersections of criminalisation, stigmatisation and precarity. These experiences are the foundations for our core beliefs as an organisation.
SWU values:
Solidarity instead of charity: SWU believes in the spirit of mutual aid, where members support each other without expectation, communicate what they need, and trust each other
Principle of equity: we recognise the intersections of the rights of other marginalised communities within sex workers rights, including those of migrant workers, trans people, racialised workers of colour, people with disabilities (including those who meet the criteria but do not identify as disabled, such as neurodivergent people and people living with HIV), women and the working class - and we will uplift and fight for those communities within our organising. We also acknowledge the specific difficulties faced by sex workers affected by the culture of toxic masculinity.
Sex workers should be the ones leading the movement: no managers, bosses, or profiteers are allowed to join SWU, organise with SWU or have a say in how we organise
Harm reduction: as it applies to issues facing sex workers and people facing poverty
Prison abolition: we understand carceral solutions to be extremely damaging and ineffective, and we work towards new models of justice and transformation. We understand carceral solutions to often be a plaster over deeper societal traumas such as poverty, lack of education, lack of support networks and sustainable systems of care. For more information please see the SWARM abolition resource here.
Collective responsibility: no one is more important than another, and we interact with mutual respect and humility and hold space for each other with care. We communicate our needs, approaches, and politics, and consider each other’s needs, approaches, and politics. We understand that everyone is on their own journey, and we are there to help each other grow. We listen to opposing perspectives to support our own growth
Individual accountability: We work on our own internalised shame around being sex workers and we do not take this out on one another. This includes no shaming other sex workers for their rates, and no whorephobia. We also value learning from our mistakes and we negotiate these with generosity. We allow others to make mistakes, support them in their own processes and journeys, and give them space to grow
