Federal lawsuit alleges discrimination against Vietnamese women nail techs

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

The fight for licensed manicurists to be able to work as self-employed without passing a test is going to court.
Backed by Vietnamese American nail technicians and nail salon owners holding protest signs, including 'stop Asian hate,' Republican Assemblyman Tri Ta announced Monday morning the filing of a discrimination lawsuit outside of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Santa Ana.
'Earlier this year, our office received many concerns from Vietnamese American manicurists and nail salon owners,' Ta said at a news conference. 'Their lives were turned upside down overnight when the independent contractor status expired on January 1.'
'It is not just unfair, it is discrimination,' he added.
Licensed barbers, cosmetologists, estheticians and electrologists can still work as independent contractors under state labor law without being subjected to a rigorous test.
But exemptions under Assembly Bill 5 expired this year for manicurists.
The change has left manicurists and nail salon owners alike confused as to whether non-employees can continue renting booths for their businesses — a decades-long industry practice.
Ta, whose 70th Assembly District encompasses Little Saigon, said 82% of manicurists in the state are Vietnamese, with 85% of those being women.
The federal discrimination suit, filed on May 31, represents several Orange County nail salon businesses as well as individual manicurists.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the heads of five state agencies and boards are named as defendants.
'This lawsuit seeks only one thing — to make sure that all professionals in the beauty industry are treated equally and to eliminate the obvious discrimination against the Vietnamese community,' the complaint reads.
Attorney Scott Wellman, who is litigating on behalf of the nail salon owners and manicurists, held up a copy of the complaint during the news conference. He claimed the equal protection rights of his clients under the U.S. Constitution are being violated by the lack of an exemption.
'This wrong has to be righted,' Wellman said.
The suit represents a change in strategy for those fighting on behalf of aggrieved manicurists and nail salon owners.
In February, Ta introduced Assembly Bill 504, which aimed to reinstate the exemption for manicurists, but later claimed the proposed legislation couldn't even get a hearing from the committee on labor and employment. He followed up in March by calling for the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation into alleged racial discrimination codified in California labor law, before ultimately turning to federal court.
'These hardworking professionals deserve the same freedom to set their own hours, to choose their own clients, to rent their own booths and to run their own businesses on their own terms just like other peers in the beauty industry,' Ta said Monday.
Ta and the suit cite statistics from a UCLA Labor Center report on California's nail salon industry that was published last year. Co-authors of the report, though, have been publicly critical of Ta's efforts to have the exemption reinstated.
'As an industry predominantly consisting of Vietnamese and female manicurists, AB 5 protects the community from misclassification and labor violations that have long existed at the workplace so that they can receive the wages, benefits and protections that all workers deserve,' said Lisa Fu, executive director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative and report co-author.
The report found that 80% of nail salon workers are considered low-wage earners, with 30% of manicurists in the state classified as self-employed, which is triple the national rate.
Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the sunset provision in AB 5, previously told TimesOC that the nail salon industry has a long history of high misclassification rates that needed added guardrails for labor rights 'while still allowing individual business owners the ability to work as a sole proprietor and simply rent space from a salon.'
Manicurists who back the federal discrimination suit spoke out at Monday's press conference.
'I want to be able to continue to work as an independent contractor,' said Loan Ho. 'It gives me more flexibility. I have time to raise my children.'
Emily Micelli works out of Blu Nail Bar at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, which is the lead plaintiff in the suit. She has more than 20 years of experience as a nail technician and doesn't want to be a nail salon employee.
Micelli left the previous nail salon she worked out of when the owner wouldn't allow her to continue as an independent contractor.
'I cannot keep clients on my phone, make appointments and come up with my own custom design packages,' Micelli said after the news conference. 'I have to abide by the salon's rules. It will make me lose business.'
Micelli believes that while the law may be well-intended, it otherwise serves to discriminate against Vietnamese American women like herself.
'I know the law wants to protect us as workers,' she said, 'but being a W-2 [worker] is better for office workers not for people like us, who are artists. I'm actually an artist — a nail artist.'