Passional Boutique and Sexploratorium, a sex shop on Philadelphia’s South Street, made headlines in January 2024. The sex shop, which has a reputation for LGBTQ inclusivity, reportedly laid off its entire staff. According to reports, the layoffs came over a month after the store workers asked the owner, Kali Morgan, to recognize their union voluntarily.
While speaking to reporters, the former employees noted that Morgan announced that she wanted to sell Passional. Also, they said Morgan claimed she laid them off because the prospective buyer would only “work with their family members in the store.”
However, the workers say the layoffs responded to their unionization effort. One of the laid-off workers, Greer Turner, spoke to reporters about the organizing effort and the layoffs. According to Turner, the workers organized a union to negotiate with Morgan as a unit.
Like many employers, Turner claimed Morgan encouraged workers to talk to her if they had an issue. Also, the former employee claimed there was a lot of staff turnover due to regular staff layoffs. “It was a small business,” Turner said. “So we were all doing things beyond retail or working in a store.”
Turner said part of the reason they wanted a union was so they could negotiate a raise for themselves. In addition, she said they tried to negotiate the non-compete agreement they signed. According to Turner, the agreement lasted for two years after the employees left the sex shop.
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The non-compete agreement reportedly banned the store employees from having any store or for-profit workshop business doing any similar sex toy or fantasy or fetish fashion sales within the tristate area or sixty miles.
Although Turner said the store released them from that, they still wanted a union. The former sex shop worker claims sex education and LGBTQ issues were a big interest for many who worked there. “We wanted to use our specific knowledge in this business to be able to make a real living,” she said. “And we weren’t able to do that.”
Furthermore, Turner said they wanted to be able to negotiate profit sharing if the store were to become more profitable. “Our thought was, if the shop sale is real, we wanted to do something to protect our rights,” she said. However, the store workers didn’t think Morgan would fire them for it.
“We wanted to do something to protect our rights,” Turner said. “We didn’t think that we would get fired for it.” The workers started discussing their plans to unionize in October 2023. They began by reaching out to a bunch of unions. However, nobody was getting back to them.
Eventually, Turner contacted the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC). They met Richard Renner, who specialized in whistleblower and labor. Renner helped the employees get started on how to organize their union.
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Afterward, the employees read a letter at a staff meeting. They took turns, each reading a paragraph. They reportedly asked for voluntary recognition of their union on December 5, 2023. According to Turner, Morgan said she wasn’t against the idea.
However, Morgan noted that she was worried that a new potential owner might not want to deal with a union. Also, the store owner requested for two weeks to consider the idea. Unfortunately, Turner said Morgan kept moving the staff meeting, saying she’s not “sure about the future of the business.”
Morgan reportedly sent a group text to the workers saying, “Don’t come in today. The store’s closed.” Afterward, she emailed the workers, stating, “This is your official notice of layoff.” However, the employees felt Morgan laid them off because they announced their intention to create a union.
In addition, Turner said the layoffs affected the employees. She stated it caused a tenuous housing situation for some. Also, she said others had to consider moving back in with family or leaving the area.
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