Worker rights? Racial bias? A law change for manicurists prompts debate, confusion

Since the beginning of the year, licensed manicurists and nail salon owners in Orange County and across the state have been confused about whether a change in state law allows the business practice of renting a booth to continue or not.

After an exemption expired under state law, nail salon workers are now subject to a rigorous test to determine if they are independent contractors while licensed aestheticians, electrologists, barbers and cosmetologists remain exempted from it.

Assemblyman Tri Ta, a Republican whose 70th Assembly District encompasses cities including Garden Grove, Westminster and Fountain Valley, is leading an effort to bring the exemption back and extend it indefinitely to clear up the confusion.

“In the past few months, my office has received a lot of calls and emails from nail salon owners and professionals,” Ta said. “They are stressed out because the exclusion has created financial and operational difficulties. That is a burden and financial hardship for salon owners and manicurists. We have to do something for them.”

What Ta proposes is simple: reinsert the independent contractor exemption for licensed manicurists through Assembly Bill 504, which he co-authored with fellow Republican Assembly member Alexandra Macedo.

Lucero Herrera, a co-author of a UCLA Labor Center report on nail salon workers published last year, expressed concerns that the bill would represent a step back for manicurists.

“While some manicurists operate as legitimate independent contractors — bringing their own supplies, setting their own hours and managing their own clients — many should be classified as employees and receive essential labor protections,” she said. “Extending the exemption under AB 504 could further erode worker protections and perpetuate precarity in the nail salon industry.”

Ta introduced his bill on Feb. 10 and said it aims to correct “racial targeting” in state employment law, as he pointed to the UCLA report’s finding that 82% of manicurists were born in Vietnam and 85% are women.

“If the exemption already works for other types of beauty licenses, it should work for manicurists,” he said. “We know that the industry is made up of minority business owners and workers. They are pursuing their own version of the American dream.”

Mike Vo, a Huntington Beach-based business attorney and co-founder of the Pro Nails Assn., deemed a joint bulletin by the state Department of Consumer Affairs and Board of Barbering and Cosmetology alerting manicurists that the rules would “slightly differ” in 2025 to be an understatement.

“It’s a dramatic change,” he said. “I think that misled some folks.”

In recent months, Vo has educated the nail salon industry, from owners to manicurists, about his interpretation of the rule changes.

“It’s really disrupting the business model that folks have invested thousands of dollars into,” Vo said. “The investments that are required to perform nail services as a licensed manicurist would require substantial investments in either retrofitting a home or having a mobile trailer. For some people, that’s not practical.”

Vo has advised manicurists who are also licensed cosmetologists that they can also legally do nails at a salon as an independent contractor, but that would entail budgeting a return to beauty school for those who don’t already hold a cosmetology license.

A manicurist works on the nails of a client at Captivate Nail & Spa in Fullerton.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

The change in state law particularly impacts Southern California, where half of all of the state’s nail salon workers are located, according to the UCLA report.

Orange County, as home to the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam, has long seen such refugees work as manicurists after the fall of Saigon nearly 50 years ago.

“For several decades, Vietnamese nail professionals have been really successful,” Ta said. “The nail industry is one of the most important career opportunities for the Vietnamese American community, not only in Orange County, not only in California, but across the nation.”

With a more critical view of the industry, former Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez originally set a 2022 sunset provision for manicurists in AB 5, a bill that was signed into law in 2019.

“Nail salons have had a long history of high rates of misclassification and utilization of an immigrant workforce that often is unaware of their employment rights — an issue I worked on as a legislator long before AB 5,” said Gonzalez, a Democrat who is now president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. “Additional guardrails were needed in the law to ensure the misclassified workers in this industry were protected, while still allowing individual business owners the ability to work as a sole proprietor and simply rent space from a salon.”

In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an extension that expired this year.

The California Federation of Labor Unions is working with legislators to clarify its position that booth renting can continue after the law change.

Vo doesn’t see any viable way for a licensed manicurist to be considered an independent contractor under what’s known as the ABC test, which demands proof that their work is not overseen by a business owner and is provided outside of the normal course of a hiring business owner.

“I have yet to talk to anyone who is still legally characterized as an independent contractor after the ABC test,” Vo said.

Being classified as an employee entitles nail salon workers to earn at least the state’s minimum wage in addition to other rights and benefits like sick pay, rest and meal breaks, overtime pay and workers’ compensation.

According to the UCLA report, a third of nail salon workers were classified as self-employed before the rule change and 80% of nail salon workers, overall, were considered low-wage earners earning less than $17.08 an hour.

“Misclassification often results in lower wages, unstable income and lack of rights,” Herrera said. “Unemployment insurance, health and safety protections and safeguards against retaliation and discrimination are all benefits that proved critical for manicurists during the pandemic.”

Ta’s bill is awaiting a referral to a policy committee. He sees it as a necessary step to correct what he believes is an unfair singling out of mostly Vietnamese women manicurists.

“We just want to correct an unfair treatment in California employment law,” Ta said. “Everyone needs to have the same treatment. It is a must for nail salon professionals.”