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Because Slim Pickens is raising the issue, I bring your attention to something I wrote last December:

It’s so easy to pick on Diane Duke. All you have to do is listen to her interviews then compare them with reality. It’s a concept similar to when an attorney moves his lips.

Back on June 22, 2012 Duke was a guest on a Podcast called DirtyOldMen.tv which I assume is no longer active after a run of seven episodes.

At the beginning of the interview which is conducted by Colin Rowntree, Duke, on the subject of health care for performers was all excited. She claimed she got “good news” the day before.

Whatever that news was, it wasn’t shared with the rest of the adult industry, neither then nor now. In other words Duke opened the Pandora’s box, and Pandora didn’t bother jumping out.

Duke called the Free Speech Coalition the “watch dog” of the industry.

“Right now we’re working on health benefits for all the industry, trying to get health benefits for the entire industry, as a group, get health benefits,” Duke declared.

“I got some good news yesterday [June 21st, 2012] so I’ll be in touch,” Duke promised.

It was noted that the “average model” [meaning adult performer] are contract workers working for many different companies. But in Duke’s answer never does she once address the talent.

[From here I quote Duke verbatim:]

“We’ve been called by a number of companies,” continued Duke. “I think every business, whether it’s adult or just a regular business is going through pains with health insurance benefits for their employees.

“And we’re seeing just at FSC double digit increases every year, and everybody has been seeing it. Some people have seen increases as much as 30%.

“So we’re really trying to help our businesses keep those costs low so they can still offer those benefits to their employees but it’s not going to break the bank for them.

“A lot of people are trying to figure out, okay, can I offer health benefits and keep the same staffing ratio that I have now. It’s either do I lay somebody off or do I keep the employee benefits going. So it’s been a really difficult choice for folks because they’ve had to down size because of the costs and our industry’s revenues have been a lot tighter because of piracy.”

“We’re a very well established association, but insurance companies are not writing association policies right now. And I think they’ve decided not to do that any more. One of the things we’re looking at is a preferred employer association which would be like SAG.

“You’d have to do health insurance, but you do your payroll though the company, too, so the health insurance payroll and probably workers comp, if you could bundle those things in your company and put them under this umbrella. You’d still have your individual company choices but we could as a group could make these kind of purchases.”

Whatever she’s saying, Duke claims the industry would be looking at cheaper prices.

“FSC’s health insurance could go down, if we do this together as a group, we can do the benefits upscale.”

That was the last word heard from Duke on the subject.