BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó






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                                   THIRD READING 


          Bill No:  AB 2025
          Author:   Gonzalez (D), et al.
          Amended:  8/19/16 in Senate
          Vote:     21 

           SENATE BUS., PROF. & ECON. DEV. COMMITTEE:  8-0, 6/13/16
           AYES:  Hill, Bates, Block, Gaines, Galgiani, Jackson, Mendoza,  
            Wieckowski
           NO VOTE RECORDED:  Hernandez

           SENATE LABOR & IND. REL. COMMITTEE:  5-0, 6/29/16
           AYES:  Mendoza, Stone, Jackson, Leno, Mitchell

           SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE:  7-0, 8/11/16
           AYES:  Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen

           ASSEMBLY FLOOR:  69-3, 5/19/16 - See last page for vote

           SUBJECT:   Barbering and cosmetology:  labor law education  
                     requirements


          SOURCE:    California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative


          DIGEST:  This bill updates the Barbering and Cosmetology Act  
          (Act) to ensure that the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology  
          (BBC) offers all written materials provided to licensees and  
          applicants in English, Spanish and Vietnamese; that the BBC  
          provides practitioner and establishment applicants with  
          information about basic labor laws and; that the BBC includes  
          basic labor law information in health and safety curriculum  
          taught in BBC-approved schools.








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          Senate Floor Amendments of 8/19/16 replace an inaccurate code  
          reference in current law to Department of Health Care Services  
          with Department of Public Health, the intended agency for the  
          BBC Health and Safety Advisory Committee to report its sanitary  
          conditions regulations.


          Senate Floor Amendments of 8/16/16 delay implementation of the  
          measure until July 2017, add Korean to the list of languages BBC  
          must make written materials available in and make other  
          technical and conforming changes.


          ANALYSIS:  


          Existing law:


          1)Defines "establishment" as any premises, building or part of a  
            building where any activity licensed under the Act is  
            practiced and sets forth requirements for licensure as an  
            establishment by BBC.  (Business and Professions Code (BPC) §§  
            7346-7352)


          2)Establishes the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act  
            (Dymally-Alatorre) which requires each state agency to conduct  
            a survey, related to its bilingual services, of each of its  
            statewide offices which render services to the public every  
            two years to determine specified information.  (Government  
            Code Section 7290 et seq.)


          3)Establishes the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE)  
            and grants the Chief of DLSE (Labor Commissioner) and his or  
            her employee's free access to all places of labor.  (Labor  
            (LAB) Code §§ 83 and 90)


          4)States the policy of this state to vigorously enforce minimum  
            labor standards in order to ensure employees are not required  







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                                                                    Page  3


            or permitted to work under substandard unlawful conditions or  
            for employers that have not secured the payment of  
            compensation, and to protect employers who comply with the law  
            from those who attempt to gain a competitive advantage at the  
            expense of their workers by failing to comply with minimum  
            labor standards.  Requires the Labor Commissioner to adopt an  
            enforcement plan for the field enforcement unit which shall  
            identify priorities for investigations to be undertaken by the  
            unit that ensure the available resources will be concentrated  
            in industries, occupations, and areas in which employees are  
            relatively low paid and unskilled, and those in which there  
            has been a history of violations and those with high rates of  
            noncompliance with the law.  (LAB § 90.5)


          5)Requires, at the time of hiring, an employer to provide each  
            employee a written notice, in the language the employer  
            normally uses to communicate employment-related information to  
            the employee, containing information about the rate or rates  
            of pay.  (LAB § 2810.5)





          This bill:


          1)Requires, beginning July 1, 2017, BBC to offer and make  
            available all written materials provided to licensees and  
            applicants in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean.


          2)Expands the role of the BBC Health and Safety Advisory  
            Committee to require recommendations be provided on issues  
            impacting board licensees, including how to ensure licensees  
            are aware of basic labor laws (BLLs) including, but not  
            limited to key differences between the legal rights, benefits,  
            and obligations of an employee and an independent contractor;  
            wage and hour rights for hourly employees; antidiscrimination  
            laws relating to the use of a particular language in the  
            workplace; anti-retaliation laws relating to a worker's right  
            to file complaints with the Department of Industrial Relations  
            and; how to obtain more information about state and federal  







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            labor law.


          3)Requires every electronic application to renew a license to  
            include a signed acknowledgment that the renewal applicant  
            understands that establishments are responsible for compliance  
            with any applicable labor laws of the state and that the  
            applicant understands the informational materials BLLs.


          Background
          
          Concerns about nail salons and experiences of nail salon  
          employees.  Nail salons have been the focus of studies and media  
          reports in recent years stemming from health, safety and labor  
          concerns in these settings.  In May 2015, the New York Times  
          (NYT) published two articles stemming from interviews with more  
          than 150 nail salon workers and owners that found that a cast  
          majority of workers are paid below minimum wage and are  
          sometimes not even paid.  The articles found that workers  
          "endure all manner of humiliation, including having their tips  
          docked as punishment for minor transgressions, constant video  
          monitoring by owners, even physical abuse."  The NYT also found  
          that employers are rarely punished for labor and other  
          violations and that in 2014, when the New York State Labor  
          Department conducted its first nail salon sweep, investigators  
          inspected 29 salons and found 116 wage violations.  While only  
          about a quarter of the more than 100 workers said they were paid  
          an amount equivalent to that state's minimum hourly wage, all  
          but three said they had wages withheld in ways considered  
          illegal, such as never getting overtime and many were unaware  
          that working unpaid was against the law and their alarmingly low  
          wages are also illegal.  


          A February 2016 follow up report in the NYT articles found that  
          40 percent of the salons inspected, as part of the Labor  
          Department's increased efforts to inspect following the original  
          May articles, had underpaid employees, including one worker at a  
          Manhattan salon who was paid $30 a day for 10-hour shifts, a  
          manicurist in Queens who was paid only $200 for a 50-hour  
          workweek, had manicurists at seven salons who were forced to  
          work for no pay or had to pay salon owners a fee, ostensibly to  
          learn the trade and several owners admitted to submitting fake  







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                                                                    Page  5


          payroll records in an effort to fool investigators.  The article  
          highlighted that employers are often unfamiliar with the  
          intricacies of state labor laws. 


          On August 26, 2015, the Assembly Select Committee on Women in  
          the Workplace, the Assembly Select Committee on Girls and Women  
          of Color, and the Assembly Committees on Health, Business and  
          Professions, and Labor held a joint informational hearing titled  
          "Labor Practices, Health, and Safety in California Nail Salons."  
           The purpose of the hearing was to obtain information, address  
          concerns, and discuss policy recommendations regarding nail  
          salon practices from state agencies, advocates, and industry.  




          The Author notes that the most widely agreed-upon problem  
          discussed at the hearing was lack of information about worker  
          rights. According to the Author, this lack of information,  
          combined with cultural and language barriers, has led to some  
          nail salon owners using illegal practices to manage workers.  
          These practices include employee/contractor misclassification,  
          daily pay totaling less than minimum wage, unpaid overtime,  
          withholding tips or deducting pay as retaliation, denying meal  
          breaks, and language discrimination. The Author states that it  
          is clear to many stakeholders that the use of such illegal labor  
          practices is not always malicious, so one commonsense step is to  
          ensure that owners are informed of existing laws, which this  
          bill intends to do by utilizing the current establishment  
          application process to increase awareness of basic labor laws  
          relevant to establishments without onerous requirements on  
          businesses.  The measure would set forth requirements for all  
          BBC establishments, including nail salons.  


          FISCAL EFFECT:   Appropriation:    No          Fiscal  
          Com.:YesLocal:   No


          According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, this bill will  
          not result in significant costs related to the requirement to  
          provide information to licensees in languages other than  
          English, or to collect applicant demographic data, as BBC has  







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                                                                    Page  6


          already translated its informational materials into the  
          languages specified in this bill or is in the process of doing  
          so.  The analysis notes that there will be additional  
          information technology costs, likely over $150,000 to make  
          changes to the BreEze online application system to record a  
          license applicant's acknowledgement of his or her responsibility  
          to comply with BLLs.




          SUPPORT:   (Verified8/22/16)


          California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative (source)
          Asian Health Services 
          Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum 
          Black Women for Wellness
          Board of Barbering and Cosmetology
          California Employment Lawyers Association 
          California Immigrant Policy Center
          California Labor Federation
          California Pan-Ethnic Health Network 
          Center for Environmental Health
          Community Action Marin
          Immigrant Resettlement & Cultural Center, Inc. 
          Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance
          Professional Beauty Federation of California
          National Employment Law Project 
          The Greenlining Institute 
          WorkSafe


          OPPOSITION:   (Verified8/22/16)


          None received


          ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT:     A number of nonprofit organizations  
          focused on improving the health of Asian Americans, serving the  
          Asian American community in California and groups that work  
          closely with nail salon workers and their families, as well as  
          those with experience advocating for employment and labor  







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                                                                    Page  7


          rights, are in support of this bill.  Supporters believe the  
          bill strikes the right balance in its focus on education and  
          removal of language barriers while requiring owners to have a  
          basic understanding of their obligations under California labor  
          law.

          ASSEMBLY FLOOR:  69-3, 5/19/16
          AYES:  Achadjian, Alejo, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bigelow,  
            Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chau,  
            Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly,  
            Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo  
            Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove,  
            Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim,  
            Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Medina,  
            Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen,  
            Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago,  
            Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk,  
            Wood, Rendon
          NOES:  Travis Allen, Harper, Mayes
          NO VOTE RECORDED:  Brough, Chang, Beth Gaines, Hadley, Mathis,  
            McCarty, Steinorth, Williams

          Prepared by:Sarah Mason / B., P. & E.D. / (916) 651-4104
          8/23/16 9:54:19


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