Deal or No Deal?
Fighting for California Manicurists
As Professional Beauty Federation followers are aware, manicurists in California recently lost their legal right to operate independently as beauty professionals in salons and spas in which they aren’t the establishment owner. While we successfully lobbied in 2019 for our industry’s exemption from the infamous “AB 5” law — which essentially outlawed independent contractor relationships throughout California, the author of that bill inserted a sunset date for nail techs. That meant that unless the original law was altered, manicurists were destined to lose that exemption, and with it their right to operate independently within an establishment.
California Legislators were convinced that violations of labor and worker classification laws were being ignored by this particular sector of our beauty/ barbering industry — thanks in no small part to an unflattering NY Times series about Korean nail salons and massage parlors that ran shortly before AB 5’s passage. Sacramento policymakers believed that hard-working manicurists were the most vulnerable to these labor law violations, particularly if they were stripped of the legal and regulatory protections that come with being bona fide W-2 employees.
While their intentions were to protect nail workers, the result was to inequitably isolate this particular sector of our industry from everyone else making a living in beauty/barbering.
As everyone is aware, the nail segment is dominated by first-generation immigrant professionals employing their skills to beautify the world, while economically lifting themselves and their families onto the economic rungs of the American dream. Protecting their legal interests is noble, but treating them differently is disrespectful.
How dare anyone — let alone our own elected representatives — tell these industrious workers that they can’t responsibly handle the same employment options as the other sectors of our industry! There seemed to be an implicit assumption that nail techs were too naive to protect their own interests if given the same flexibilities afforded barbers, cosmetologists, lash/brow artists, skin care professionals and others who enjoy broader worker classification options.
Just picture the lunacy of the current situation: California law now allows an independent (booth rental) cosmetologist to perform nail services in a salon, but a licensed manicurists working in that same salon cannot, at least not as an independent operator (only as a W-2 employee of the establishment).
The Professional Beauty Federation has been fighting in the policy trenches to defend nail techs and ensure the equitable treatment of all hard-working professionals across every segment of barbering/beauty. While we successfully extended the sunset on manicurists a few years back, and despite a series of Republican-authored bills (including another recently introduced), we simply haven’t been able to generate the needed grassroots support to continue to preserve their right to operate independently.
And so the sunsetting of manicure’s right to booth rent went into effect this past January. And absent a concerted effort on all of our part, another minority-Party bill won’t solve the problem and likely not even get a policy committee hearing. We need to generate sufficient political will among a majority of California lawmakers and powerful interest groups to correct this unfair, two-tiered legal framework.
This task is daunting. We need to shepherd a legislative bill through both the California State Assembly and Senate (dominated by a Democratic super-majority who embraced AB 5 at the urging of labor unions) and then signed by the Democratic Governor. And there are powerful stakeholder interests in Sacramento who are closely aligned with the majority Party who look askance at any effort to side-step AB 5’s so-called “ABC Test” — which places a high legal bar on businesses utilizing independent contractors, and all but eviscerates independent workers in a salon setting.
Our recent conversations with such stakeholders and legislative leaders have been productive. But we need grassroots air cover and a united front among all industry stakeholders to push our worthy mission across the finish line.
We are therefore calling upon anyone and everyone in our beloved industry, but most especially the nail sector professionals and businesses, to join our campaign. If we fail here, California’s over-sized influence could eventually impact other state’s legal stance in this arena, possibly reaching beyond just nail salons — potentially undermining the independence of cosmetologists, estheticians, and barbers. It’s time everyone in the barbering/beauty world unite in defense of our California manicurists because all of us could be next!
