The withdrawal of labour by Soho's working girls was a throwback to a bygone era. Without a sniff of a secret ballot, prostitutes yesterday left potential clients searching for alternative sources of furtive pleasure in protest at council attempts to evict them from the flats where they work.
Dressed in masks to protect their identity, the occupants of the district's dingy stairwells took to the streets which they may be forced to ply if Westminster council gets its way.
"The girls here have done nothing wrong," one prostitute said. "Nothing that ordinary people don't do every day." (Except perhaps a bit more often - most welcome around 20 clients daily.)
The women see themselves as casualties of what they claim is Westminster's determination to gentrify the area. The council claims it wants to bring their properties back into "proper residential use".
Niki Adams, a spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, insisted that the women's decision to withdraw their labour would have serious economic consequence. The Soho sex industry is a tourist attraction, and the sex workers spend their own hard-earned cash locally. "By going on strike, these women are showing the contribution they make to society in the same way as other workers would."
The Soho professionals' premises are dotted around the famous red light district, usually identified with a card bearing the word "model". Most work with a "maid" who welcomes the clients, takes the cash and cleans the sheets.
The council argues there is an acute need for housing in Soho, and residents support its clean-up. Housing used for "improper purposes" can be treated in the same way as empty properties, it claims. Landlords are asked to upgrade their properties; if they fail to comply, compulsory purchase orders can be issued.
But the Soho women argue these powers are being abused. They say at least one property is now in the hands of a porn baron, and claim money is the council's motive. The receipts from entertainment licences and business rates are too attractive to miss.
