Today, the salon owner charged my client’s services before the service was over. She refused to give me the money and told me she would put it towards rent, but I never agreed to this, nor did I agree to her taking a percentage from both the sale and my tip.

When I said that I wasn’t going to tolerate this, she claimed that it couldn’t be helped because the client paid with a gift card. I know the client didn’t pay with a gift card, but that’s beside the point, because the owner knows I don’t accept her salon’s gift cards. (Besides that, nowhere in my lease does it say anything about her stupid gift cards!)

After I caught her in the lie, the owner said I’m no longer allowed to receive any walk-ins. Is this legal? Can she seriously refuse me walk-in clients?

I’ve already addressed this topic, but your story provides important insight.

You did everything right. You took every step you could to prevent being taken advantage of. When your landlord pushed your boundaries, you responded immediately. Few have the confidence to do so, and I’m glad to hear you did. Her treatment of you is nothing more than childish, petty retaliation. I’m embarrassed for her.

However, unless your contract states otherwise, you aren’t owed walk-in clients. (More about that here.)

What can you do about it? Unfortunately, not much. You could bring her to small claims court, but the filing fee will likely cost more than the disputed amount, and unless you really want to make a point, it might not be worth your time to pursue.

In these situations, the only thing you really can do is tell her to make things right, or you’ll warn others, starting with your fellow renters.

If she refuses, make good on that promise. Only state what you can confirm—what you’re willing to swear to in court under threat of perjury. Don’t embellish or get creative. Stick to the facts, and keep your emotions in check.

If she threatens to bring you to court—good. Let her. Be sure to update us so we can hear how she rationalized the theft. 

I’m sorry this happened to you. Sometimes, even when you do everything right, you aren’t entirely safe, and even if you’ve clearly been wronged, you might never see justice.

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[VIP 2] The Industry's Education Solution

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Issue 1: Defining Practical Clinical Experience and Compensable Labor

Schools lose in court when they aren’t able to sufficiently prove that the tasks they’re having students perform are a necessary part of the education. If they can prove the students were only performing tasks required by the state board, they will prevail—the way the massage school did. (Supervision or no, the students were performing legally required clinic hours while an instructor was on the premises.)

Salon chores—clearing hair clogs out of shampoo sinks, mopping floors, and scrubbing toilets—are not part of any state board’s practical education requirements.

With that considered, we can easily draw a line between what constitutes practical and necessary parts of practice that should be included in a professional’s clinical education and what can only be described as compensable labor.

Reasonable: Expecting students to sweep hair after a cut.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to mop the floor.

Reasonable: Expecting students to disinfect their tools.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to scrub the toilets.

Reasonable: Expecting students to clean the shampoo bowl after rinsing out chemicals.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to disassemble the piping to remove hair clogs. (Which I have done as a student.)

Reasonable: Expecting students to keep their station drawers free of dirt and debris as required by state board regulations.
Unreasonable: Expecting students to count, dust, front, and stock retail inventory.

There’s a difference between sweeping the area around your station immediately after a service to keep a client from slipping (in compliance with regulations) versus scrubbing the school’s toilets. One is part of the service that state boards require of practicing professionals; the other is janitorial work that has absolutely nothing to do with the service. Schools can justify teaching and requiring state board compliance; they cannot use the students as unpaid janitors.

Issue 2: Clarifying the Scope of a Technical Program

As an industry, we need to agree on the role of our learning institutions. We’re placing some really unrealistic expectations on trade schools when we say things like, “Schools have to prepare you for the salon.”

Schools are responsible for ensuring their graduates can safely and competently perform the services their license authorizes them to perform.

Anything outside of technical education falls outside of the scope of a technical school and constitutes a waste of valuable instructive time. Schools aren’t responsible for producing professionals who know how to work reception, take inventory, and clean our salons. After all, they’re not licensing them to be receptionists, retail workers, or our cleaning crew. Students are being licensed as salon professionals and will be seeking employment as service providers. As salon owners and managers, we are responsible for communicating our expectations and training our employees. We are responsible for developing our talent.

To expect trade school educators to do our jobs for us is absolutely ludicrous.

Issue 3: Establishing Prohibitions and Enforcement Standards

I sincerely believe school owners (including those at Douglas J) had no malice in requiring their students to do menial salon work. Most facilities operate their clinic floor like a functional salon in every way. This seems very much like another instance of “monkey see; monkey do.” Every time one of these cases makes headlines, about half of the professionals involved in the discussion comment that their schools required them to do the same.

Our state boards will need to specifically prohibit schools from requiring students to perform menial chores during instructive time and assign penalties to those who do.

Many state boards have defined the scope of a cosmetology education so it shouldn’t require much time or effort to enact a common-sense prohibition against unrelated labor, but it will require professionals to organize and collaborate, to help their state board members determine a suitable course of action.

Nothing happens without your involvement.

In Part 3: The Industry’s Education Reconfiguration, we’ll talk about alternatives to the current education methods and how those alternatives might help eliminate the deregulation arguments entirely. For now, what do you think? Do you have any ideas or strategies for improving our schools?

Recently, students have been suing their technical schools, arguing that their time spent performing clinic work and other chores should be considered compensable time. In October, Detroit students fighting the Douglas J Aveda Institute won when U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy ruled that they were considered employees under federal law. However, massage students fighting Steiner Education Group recently lost, with the 10^th Circuit Court of Appeals determining that the students were not entitled to wages for their time spent in training.

In Part 1 of this article, I’ll walk you through both of the cases and the decisions made. Then, in Part 2, we’ll define the line between valuable technical practice and compensable work and what we can do to keep schools from unintentionally crossing that line. In Part 3, we’re going to shake the whole system up with proposals for alternative education methods that could potentially end the push for deregulation forever.

If you own a school or attend one, don’t skip this.

The Douglas J Aveda Institute Case

What we know:

• Students testified that they were required to perform menial tasks during instructive hours, such as cleaning floors, restocking products, and doing laundry.
• Lawyers for Douglas J argued that manual labor was “part of the education.”
• Judge Judith Levy disagreed, stating, “These tasks are beyond the pale of the contemplated cosmetology education and training the plaintiffs sought,” and determined the students could be considered employees under federal law, which means they are entitled to be compensated.
• This ruling paves the way for class action, which could affect as many as 5,000 or 6,000 students at all seven of the Douglas J locations.

Unfortunately, without an official written decision, not much more information can be found regarding the specifics of the Douglas J Aveda Institute case, but from the information provided in the various news articles, we can see that the defendant’s argument that the manual labor was “part of the education” didn’t hold enough merit to convince Judge Levy.

Co-owner of Douglas J, Scott Weaver, holds a position on the Michigan State Board of Cosmetology, which does not test students on their ability to clean floors, stock retail and backbar, or do laundry. To pass inspections, schools are required to operate their facilities in accordance with board guidelines (school must be “clean, sanitary, and safe” at all times), but these guidelines do not specifically empower school owners to utilize paying students for janitorial work.

The Steiner Education Group Case

What we know:

• Steiner, like most technical beauty/massage schools, required students to perform services for paying customers as part of their clinical curriculum. These students were not compensated for performing clinic services.
• However, students allege that unlike most technical beauty/massage schools, Steiner educators did not instruct, monitor, supervise, or train the students whatsoever during clinic massages. Therefore, the plaintiff alleged that Steiner was using students as unpaid employees in a factory setting instead of providing any education in a clinical learning environment.
• Steiner disputed that the students received no instruction or feedback from educators and customers.

The Steiner case differs from the Douglas J case significantly. In the Douglas J case, students were made to perform trivial janitorial tasks without compensation. In the Steiner case, students argued that they were not given supervision and instruction during clinic hours and were therefore employees; not students.

In making this determination, the court decided to use six factors adopted from Reich v Parker Fire Protection Dist. to evaluate the economic realities of the parties’ relationship. They concluded:

1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainee;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees and on occasions his operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the completion of the training period;
6. The employer and trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Steiner prevailed on all six factors, despite the fact that Colorado state law requires that clinical work be conducted under “immediate supervision.” More than half a dozen students who Steiner deposed from various schools around the country stated there was never any instruction, monitoring, observation, supervision, or training during clinic massages. Of the hundreds of pages of advertisements Steiner released, ninety percent of them did not inform the public that massages would be performed by students.

The plaintiff filed for an appeal, arguing that the court erred in applying Reich, but lost.  (You can learn more about why the court upheld its initial decision here.)

If the same test were applied to Douglas J, they likely would have passed on factors 1, 5, and 6, but probably would not have prevailed on any of the others.

The Debate

This issue polarizes beauty professionals and inspires some really strong emotional responses, with older professionals accusing younger professionals of being “lazy” and “entitled” and veteran professionals demanding that new entrants “pay their dues” the way they had to. In this section, we’ll address some of the most common statements and expectations.

“What a bunch of entitled, spoiled brats! Folding towels and scrubbing floors are a part of salon life that all professionals are expected to do!”

More than any other comment, a variation of this one pops up most frequently in this debate, so let’s get this out of the way immediately.

Students who are paying $15,000+ for an education but are instead spending their time doing menial work are not “spoiled” or “entitled.”

The “entitled” parties are those being paid thousands for tuition and thousands more for the services their students perform and who, despite receiving every cent of that money, still expect free janitorial work from their students.

Menial work will absolutely be expected of you in the salon, but you will be getting compensated to perform those tasks. You don’t need to pay tens of thousands of dollars to learn how to do them.

“It’s just a few hours a day. It’s not a big deal.”

Let’s say you’re paying $20,000 tuition and going to school in a state like Florida that requires 1,200 hours. You spent a total of just 40 hours this month doing reception, laundry, retail, and other chores that have exactly nothing to do with what you’re going to school for. In addition to not being paid, you’re paying the school $667 to do chores employers are legally required to compensate employees and interns to perform.

Still think it’s not a big deal?

We’re only considering the cost of 40 hours, which isn’t realistic at all. Many students are spending far more than 40 hours of their educational hours doing menial chores and other job duties that don’t contribute to their education.

“Schools should be preparing their students for salon life, so they should be doing the same chores we do.”

Schools are not responsible for teaching adult students how to operate washing machines, fold towels, answer phones, dust shelves, scrub toilets, or mop floors. When you promote this argument, you end up with salon owners who complain that because a student doesn’t come out of school as a perfectly trained employee of their salon (knowing how to handle the salon’s booking, inventory, or cleaning), that the schools aren’t competently training the students—a unfair criticism based on unrealistic expectations of the institution.

If schools are expected to bear the burden for getting beauty students prepared for “salon life,” are they also expected to prepare them for freelancing, business ownership, sales work, educating, platform artistry, online influencing, and all the other ways a professional may choose to work?

Many employers in our industry (and I’m guilty of this myself) are often aggravated by applicants who aren’t technically proficient right out of school. Professionals also complain about how they didn’t feel prepared coming out of school because they didn’t get enough technical education. Both of those complaints and expectations are absolutely reasonable. Maybe instead working behind a desk, inside a dispensary, or on their knees cleaning the floors, those students could be practicing the skills they’re paying to learn so none of us have anything to complain about. Instead, we’re placing the burden on the schools to teach the students how to be both model employees and technically proficient, within hourly limitations we nearly universally agree are inadequate.

This position undermines the argument for increased standards, causing a domino effect that ends with deregulation.

We cannot say on one hand, “Schools don’t provide enough practical instruction. We need more hours to ensure our students are better prepared to execute quality services safely,” and say at the same time, “Students should be made to spend their valuable, limited hours doing tasks completely unrelated to their education.”

If we’re going to make a legitimate argument for increasing graduation standards (particularly for specialist licenses like nails and skin care), we must demand that schools better utilize their time with the students.

Courts object to student exploitation for good reason. Schools push for states to increase hourly requirements and bake them into our regulations so they can qualify for federal funding. If the states realized how much of that time the schools argued was so “critical” to the student’s education was spent doing work that has nothing to do with the program’s curriculum, they would drop the hourly requirements, which would compromise the school’s ability to take federal aid, which would then compromise enrollment. It’s impossible to argue that every hour counts and is absolutely necessary to getting students prepared to meet minimum state board standards when your students are spending so much of that time answering phones, stocking retail, and doing the salon’s laundry during clocked instructive hours.

This argument also imperils licensing standards altogether by bolstering legislators’ arguments for deregulation. Our schools walk a fine line—hourly requirements have to be high enough to justify a cost that will allow their students to qualify for federal aid, but not so high that legislators can argue that they’re unreasonable. Until wages for the profession increase and attrition decreases, schools have no room to increase rates or hours, so ultimately, schools (and, by extension, our industry) are hamstrung.

Moving Forward

As more students choose technical schools over colleges, we need to address a few key issues.

1. Where do we draw the line between practical clinical experience and compensable labor?
2. How should we define the scope of our technical schools?
3. How can we ensure schools are prohibited from (and punished for) exploiting their students?

In Part 2: The Industry’s Education Solution, we’ll tackle those questions, but until then, what do you think? Should schools be allowed to use students as janitors? Should instructors be required to physically observe and participate during clinic hours? With regards to job training, where do the school’s responsibilities end and an employer’s begin?

It seems we’re holding everyone responsible for their actions, using the power of social media to publicly shame shameful people. Abusers, harassers, racists, thieves, and those who treat service workers like trash are no longer safe in their assumption that their crimes will only be remembered for as long as the witnesses talk about it. No longer will they remain cocooned in the relatively anonymous nature of their physical descriptions. People cannot play the role of “the woman at JCPenney who cursed out the cashier,” or “the old man who shouted racial slurs at a woman at the park” and walk away without consequences. Their crimes and abhorrent behaviors are recorded, uploaded, shared, swiftly attached to their real names, etched in digital stone, and woven into the potentially eternal fabric of the internet.

When are beauty workers going to start naming and shaming those who exploit them in the workplace?

Audio Version

Salon owners, before we continue let’s have a chat. You’re probably not going to like what you’re about to read. As a salon owner myself, I get that. Please understand that exploitative salon owners hurt our businesses by creating an atmosphere of unfair competition. Those of us who compensate and classify our employees legally incur far more costs than those who steal from their professionals and evade taxes.

If you aren’t intentionally exploiting your professionals, this post isn’t about you so you have nothing to be offended by. If you are, please DO take offense. You deserve it.

Professionals, I need answers from you. Why don’t I see you on Instagram, posting pictures of the $60 paycheck you brought home in exchange for 80 hours of your time? Where is your Facebook post about how your so-called employer doesn’t deduct or remit taxes but does deduct 20% from your paycheck for “product fees?” Where are your Snapchat stories, explaining and displaying the insane contract you were asked to sign? Where are the Tumblr videos of you confronting the salon landlord who unlawfully changed the locks to your suite and refuses to return your tools and equipment to you? Where are the screenshots of the abusive text messages from the employer who fired you for asking for reasonable accommodation?

When will we demand that those who steal your wages, misclassify you to evade taxes, and deny you your rights be held accountable?

• Wage theft is the largest form of larceny in our economy, accounting for more than the $13.6 billion we lose each year due to other forms of theft (like burglary and vehicle theft).
• By paying less than the legal minimum wage, employers steal an estimated $15 billion every year. This singular form of wage theft alone exceeds the estimated $14.7 billion lost annually to shoplifting.
• Nationally it is estimated that workers are not paid at least $19 billion every year in overtime and that $40-60 billion is not paid due to all forms of wage theft.

You can (and should) report wage theft and misclassification to the Department of Labor, the IRS, and/or state agencies, but do so with the knowledge that you’ll likely be waiting a long time for your case to be resolved, and that in an estimated 83% of the cases, even businesses that lose the dispute never paid back any wages. Sometimes, you have to seek your own justice, but do so the right way, lest you find yourself in the defendant’s chair learning a harsh lesson about defamation.

1.) Know your rights. Don’t embarrass yourself by making demands before you understand what you’re legally entitled to (and what you aren’t).

2.) Keep detailed records and evidence to support your claim. Before you make a statement, you need to be able to verify it. Keep your own records. Log your hours, sales, and tips. Keep those records somewhere safe—either on your phone or at home.

3.) Have an adult conversation first. Many owners in our industry have no idea that they’re breaking laws. Don’t assume intent. Follow the steps in this article and speak with someone before you put them on blast. Assume ignorance and give the owner the benefit of the doubt until it becomes clear they don’t deserve it.

I absolutely do not recommend outing a salon owner until you’ve given them an opportunity to explain themselves to you first.

If you don’t have the spine to have that conversation with the salon owner, leave this article immediately and forget about launching that smear campaign—you aren’t mature enough to be holding anyone accountable for anything.

4.) Be aware of the consequences. Before you move forward, ask yourself if you’re ready to be fired, because you very likely will be (so have a plan to file a retaliation complaint).

You should also keep in mind that you will be exposing a bad employer in a very public way and that other employers in your area will most definitely hear about it. However, if you’re truly not willing to tolerate exploitation and unlawful employment arrangements, the fact that your actions will cause other bad salon owners to blacklist you shouldn’t be a problem. (You may actually catch the attention of ethical salon owners in your area who would love to have you.)

Expect to be served with a cease and desist letter.

Cease and desist letters are not court orders. Understand that a cease and desist letter is nothing more than a scary looking notice sent by the other party’s attorney, designed to intimidate you into doing what the other party wants. Essentially, they say, “Stop doing what you’re doing, or else…”

The letter should have legal merit, but it may not. Consider it a cautionary notice—a threat that may not be fulfilled—especially if the person who sent it doesn’t have the tiniest bit of actual legal leverage. The language within the letter may sound official. You will likely be accused of committing some crime (through carefully-worded insinuations), but an accusation or insinuation isn’t a conviction. The other party will have to prove that you committed a crime in court, which will be difficult at best if you haven’t actually done so.

A “whistleblower” is an employee who reports a violation of the law by his or her employer.

Read up on the defamation laws in your state. Generally, for a defamation claim to stand, the accused must have malicious intent and/or the accusations made against the other party must be false. As a general rule, if you are telling the truth, you are not committing defamation. Additionally, defending your civil rights (which include your employment rights) and questioning or speaking out against unlawful employment practices is often considered protected speech under the NLRA and a variety of other whistleblower protections.

5.) Never lie, strategically omit information, or exaggerate your claim. When you’re calling attention to someone’s unlawful or shameful behavior, your credibility is everything. All of your arguments become invalid the second you’re caught lying or stretching the facts. Stick to the truth.

THE BURDEN OF PROOF RESTS ON THE SHOULDERS OF THE ACCUSER.

If the other party accuses you of defamation, they will have to prove you are lying. Similarly, you must be capable of proving they actually committed a crime against you. Save those receipts and never say anything you can’t prove with actual evidence. For example:

Defamation: “My boss stole $10,000 from my paycheck this year and violated prevailing wage laws, but I don’t have proof.”

Not Defamation: “My boss stole $10,000 from my paycheck this year. Here is the offer letter showing my compensation agreement. Here are the paystubs showing the deductions that prove that my pay routinely fell below the prevailing minimum wage. These are the statutes that were violated. Here are screenshots of her text messages admitting she took the money and will never give it back.”

6.) Keep calm, keep it short, and stick to the facts. If you choose to proceed, let me do you the favor of telling you that nobody wants to hear your whole life story. Nobody cares about how you met the owner, what you think of how she dresses or manages the business, how the vein in her forehead throbs when she’s mad, how you became a professional, or any of the other minute and completely irrelevant details you believe add flavor and context to your story. None of that matters. You aren’t trying to persuade anyone to pity or like you.

No matter how angry or distraught you are, Leave your emotions out of it.

Follow this format:

[YOUR NAME] [YOUR POSITION] [YOUR TENURE] at [SALON NAME] [SALON LOCATION]. [OWNER/SALON NAME] [ACCUSATION]. [PROOF/STATUTE]. [YOUR DEMANDS]. [TAGS AND HASHTAGS]

For example:

My name is June Whistleblower. I worked as a stylist for three years at Fictional Salon in Faketown, Fakestate. The owner of Fictional Salon, Suzie McFakeface:

• unlawfully deducted and withheld $13,225 of my wages for “product costs” (in violation of state law 38.3948),
• misclassified myself and my coworkers as independent contractors when we are very clearly employees (in violation of both state and federal employment classification laws),
• paid myself and my coworkers “commission-only,” and did not guarantee prevailing wage or overtime compliance (in violation of state and federal wage laws).

I sent Ms. McFakeface an email about the violations with links to the statutes on Wednesday, June 25th. After speaking with Ms. McFakeface privately on Friday, June 27th, she refused to pay and fired me. She has since sent several threatening text messages, after I repeatedly told her to stop contacting me.

I’ve attached images of my employment agreement, pay stubs, sales reports, the email sent on Wednesday, and the text messages to prove my claim.

I demand that Ms. McFakeface immediately repay the wages she stole from me and that she cease stealing the wages of her current employees. Customers and beauty professionals in the Faketown area need to be aware that Suzie McFakeface at Fictional Salon has been (and apparently plans to continue) stealing from and exploiting her employees.”

Your real power lies in your tags, hashtags, and shares. Tag relevant people, pages, and organizations. Hashtag relevant topics. Share your post to relevant groups and other places where it will be seen by people who matter (like local employee rights organizations and labor authorities).
@[local news channel], @[local news station], @departmentoflabor, @[state attorney’s name], @[local employment law firm], #[city/town] #workersrights, #wagetheft, #employmentlaw

Don’t let your narrative go off the rails. Don’t make legal threats or personal attacks. Facts > Evidence > Demands. Do not stray from the formula or you’ll risk a.) seeming petty or unstable, and b.) committing defamation.

Wage theft has frequently been referred to as “the crime wave that almost nobody talks about.” Let’s change that.

Let me put this bluntly: YOU ARE BEING STOLEN FROM. Your rights are being violated. These practices are an actual epidemic in this industry and will continue to create toxicity that poisons the entire profession. Stop allowing yourself to believe that you don’t matter and that you don’t have the power to make change. YOU ABSOLUTELY DO. You have every legal right to demand that your employers comply with the laws that protect and defend your wages and freedoms.

Where is your outrage? What are you afraid of?

I receive thousands of emails, comments, and messages from beauty workers every year.

I read and reply to every one of them. For nearly a decade, I’ve been pushing professionals to take action, but very few are willing. What most professionals are doing right now (tolerating it quietly, complaining to their friends, and never filing/following up on complaints) isn’t working.

Frankly, I’m tired of the excuses. People seem to have all the time in the world to complain about the abuses they suffer, so don’t tell me you don’t have time to complain to the people who need to hear it or to bring the issue to the attention of the public and demand someone answer for what they’ve done to you.

“But I need a job…”

You sure do, but I would argue that nobody needs a job where their wages are being stolen and their rights are being violated. Recognize that by accepting these practices you are endorsing them. You are allowing them to continue and are therefore complicit in your own exploitation and the continuance of crimes that harm everyone in this business. If you truly want the industry to become a better workplace for everyone, accept the fact that you are not above working in other industries while you’re looking for a legal employment arrangement. I love this business and the thought of working in a different industry doesn’t appeal to me either, but I have more pride and respect for myself than to tolerate a salon owner who believes they’re entitled to steal from me for their own gain.

Quit allowing yourself to be used.

These practices have fractured our industry, contributing to the delegitimization that makes it all too easy for legislators to dismiss us and deregulate our professions. So, I’ll ask you again—WHERE IS YOUR OUTRAGE?

Professionals, if you want to see change happen in the industry, make criminal salon owners scared of you. Terrify them with your education and your fearlessness. Refuse their job offers, challenge their illegal practices, hold them accountable by filing reports and sharing their shameful actions with the public.

Bring these practices out of the shadows and force these owners to explain themselves to their family, friends, and customers.

We have tried playing nice. Change won’t happen on its own. We have to make people uncomfortable. We have to apply pressure. We have to talk to the media, talk to the public, and stop being complicit ourselves. Ask questions. Demand answers. Stop giving those who victimize you a free pass.

Have you ever filed a complaint against an exploitative salon owner or held them accountable some other way? Did you speak to the media (or social media)? What happened? Tell us about it in the comments!

Exciting things are happening in February, and if you’re an aspiring nail salon owner or a new nail salon owner, you need to be present. Join me and the rest of the Nail Tech Reality Check team at The Conference at The Renaissance Suites Hotel in Chicago.

Explore your options and craft your business plans as we guide you through the major pitfalls of salon ownership: staffing and compensation, compliance, service pricing, marketing, client relations and more.

• Learn practical strategies and how to implement them immediately.
• Protect your investment against costly violations of federal and state laws.
• Become an exemplary salon owner, one who’s legal, ethical and profitable.

Attendance is limited so you must apply to attend.

Those of you who have been around a while know that I’m a compulsive planner and perfectionist–and I’m not prone to hyperbole. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this event is unlike anything else. The Conference is extremely structured and focused on the needs of the attendees. This event (and each conference I organize in the future) will cater to a specific group of professionals, so all materials, activities, and course content are relevant to every attendee. Additionally, prior to the conference I will spend time with you, learning about your business and individual needs so the team and I can ensure those needs are met. (Hence the application process.)

To ensure everyone gets the individual attention and assistance they require, only 20 businesses will be accepted. Since we announced this event to Nail Tech Reality Check members, applications are already rolling in, so if you’re interested in going, don’t wait to submit yours! Applications will be reviewed and accepted in the order they’re received.

If you have any questions, email them to education@nailtechrealitycheck. To learn more about the event and to apply, click here.

I hope to see you there!

Currently, the “standard” compensation method in many salons is “commission-only.” Some weeks, your paycheck (when averaged against the hours you’ve worked) may end up far less than minimum wage and some weeks you’ll make considerably more than minimum wage. In either case, in most salons, professionals are expected to sit around, do laundry, clean floors, answer phones, and perform a whole litany of other menial tasks that fall far outside their job description as nail technicians or hair stylists—tasks they may not be getting compensated to do.

Stop working for free. This is an industry, not a charity.

Most American workers are covered by the FLSA (the Fair Labor Standards Act), which is enforced by the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. The FLSA dictates that if you are a commission-only employee, your paycheck (when averaged into hourly pay) must equal or exceed the prevailing minimum wage. If it doesn’t, the employer must make up the difference. Commission-based employees are also entitled to overtime pay.

Salon businesses do not have an exemption from federal labor laws. The FLSA classifies salons as “retail and service establishments.”

“Retail and service establishments are defined as establishments, 75% of whose annual dollar volume of sales of goods or services (or of both) is not for resale and is recognized as retail sales or services in the particular industry.”

As a “retail and service establishment,” salons can be considered exempt from federal overtime pay requirements if all three conditions are met:
1.) the employee must be employed by a retail or service establishment, and
2.) the employee’s regular rate of pay must exceed one and one-half times the applicable minimum wage for every hour worked in a workweek in which overtime hours are worked, and
3.) more than half the employee’s total earnings in a representative period must consist of commissions.

Unless all three conditions are met, the Section 7(i) exemption is not applicable, and overtime premium pay must be paid for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek at time and one-half the regular rate of pay. Tips paid to service employees by customers may never be considered commissions for the purposes of the exemption.

The FLSA doesn’t care what you’re doing at work. If you’re there at the request of your boss, you need to be getting compensated. If your employer requires you to sit in the salon and wait for business, they should be paying you. Whether you’re folding towels or playing Candy Crush on your iPad, you’re being “engaged to wait.”

“Generally, the facts may show that the employee was engaged to wait (which is work time) or the facts may show that the employee was waiting to be engaged (which is not work time). For example, a secretary who reads a book while waiting for dictation or a fireman who plays checkers while waiting for an alarm is working during such periods of inactivity. These employees have been engaged to wait.”

Too many professionals are told that they have to “pitch in” and “be part of the team.” It is one thing to clean up after yourself and help out your coworkers; it is an entirely different thing to work for free.

You are skilled.
You are licensed.
Your time is valuable.

The problem with the “commission only” compensation model is that it doesn’t motivate the employer to ensure the employees are busy.

It costs an owner nothing to fill a salon with bodies and tell them to “sit and wait.” It doesn’t matter to them that each of their workers is barely making enough money to pay their mortgages because there’s no risk of loss to the owner, so they hire indiscriminately.

Salon owners: Having twelve stations does not mean that you have enough business to support twelve stylists.

What happens if we throw in “payday pressure?” What if this salon owner knew that they would have to ensure prevailing wage compliance for employees who don’t make at least minimum wage in commission income? They would likely cut hours (or perhaps let a few unnecessary employees go) and ramp up the salon’s advertising to ensure that it’s making enough money to cover payroll and overhead, otherwise the salon will go out of business. In short: it will force that employer to compete fairly.

Prevailing wage requirements motivates employers to ensure that each worker is generating enough money to support their wages.

The same business owner certainly isn’t going to tell a room full of hourly employees to sit around and “wait for clients” if they’re going to be responsible for paying each of them hourly wages. Knowing this, it’s no mystery why our local markets are so flooded with salons. (Do you think even half of the shops in your area would be open if they were guaranteeing their idle employees’ wages?)

I’ve consulted for dozens of salons where the owners have hired far more professionals than they needed. The senior stylists and techs are frustrated because they haven’t built yet and are having to share the limited walk-in business, causing serious tension. Every commission-based employee knows that a new stylist often means a pay cut for everyone in the salon.

Please do not offer a “job” to anyone you can’t guarantee a stable paycheck to.

Smart owners start small and commit to reasonable expansion. They don’t add new employees until they can afford them. As an owner, you need to be mindful of the welfare of your employees. Their livelihood is your responsibility. Be an equal partner in their success and ensure your employees are busy and profitable, or you will forever struggle with turnover.

“But I can’t afford to pay my workers an hourly rate!” I’ve managed six salons over the course of my career and have consulted for more than I can count. In each of them, we’ve been more than capable of balancing our overhead expenses and service pricing to design compliant compensation systems that motivate and properly award employees for superior performance.

If you have to resort to misclassification, wage theft, and other FLSA violations and are still struggling to break-even, you were likely in no way prepared for business ownership. You certainly aren’t alone. For this, we can largely blame the schools that failed to educate generations of professionals about how proper employment and business ownership works in the professional beauty industry. A whole lot of us stepped into this business with a totally inaccurate understanding of our rights and what true success looks like.

Every employee you lose will cost your business clients.

Money is a motivator. Guaranteeing your employees hourly pay is the only effective way to motivate them to do the work that needs to be done. “Commission-only” stylists, technicians, and therapists are paid for the work they do on the clients. They’re paid for doing nails, hair, skincare, and massage. They earn the money they make during the performance of that service. Past that point, if you’re not guaranteeing them a livable income, they’re generally not required to do anything additional.

No worker owes you a single thing if they’re not classified or compensated in accordance with applicable laws. However, if you’re paying your workers properly and classifying them as employees, the actually do have an obligation to obey—they have to do what they’re told or forfeit their position.

Salon professionals, quit accepting this treatment. Lay out what you will and won’t accept from the owner at the first meeting. If the owner has stylists sitting around and doing nothing, you aren’t getting a “job offer,” you’re being offered an opportunity to sit around the business for free and “maybe” make money for them.

For a job offer to be legitimate, there needs to be some promise of income—some actual JOB to be done.

Let the owner know that you have bills to pay. If they don’t have enough traffic to ensure that you’ll be receiving a solid paycheck, you aren’t interested.

This isn’t to say that you should rely entirely on the owner for your success. This road goes both ways. The owner’s job is to make sure that the salon is well-advertised and well-managed so that clients are coming in the door and her staff are making money (so the business stays open). Your job is to maintain the clientele that you gain as a result of your employment, ensuring that they leave happy and eventually return.

Let the owner know that you’re happy to do your job if they are doing theirs. You’ll sit around all day every day—you’ll do towels, you’ll answer phones, you’ll sweep hair, you’ll even go on coffee runs, as long as they understand that you expect to be paid for your time. How can any salon professional reconcile the fact that even unskilled, entry-level employees are being paid, but you aren’t? If your bagger at the grocery store and your cashier at McDonald’s are being paid to be present, why the hell shouldn’t you be?

Demand more for yourselves. This is a career—not a hobby. Treat it like one.

The Salon Compensation and Pricing Megakit calculates salon compensation and service pricing for you! It includes:

• The Salon Compensation and Pricing Calculator, an 8-page spreadsheet system that makes salon compensation and pricing calculation as simple as data entry. The best part? The system is enabled with protections to make it impossible to “break” the formulas!
• The Salon Compensation and Pricing Guide, a 44-page instruction manual that not only explains how to use the system but also explains every formula so you’re never confused about what the numbers mean or where they came from.
• A 9-page Employer Obligations Information Sheet to keep you from making very common life-destroying mistakes.
• Be Worth What You Charge, an 11-page checklist and salon evaluation resource.

This post was originally published on October 4, 2013.

Last updated on June 4th, 2024.

I told her this, but she immediately dismissed me, telling me that I’m wrong and that she’ll just stick to what her lawyer advised her to do, since (in her words) ‘he’s more qualified than a beautician to make legal recommendations.’

I’m pissed that she was so rude, and since this is one of many issues I’ve been dealing with from her I will definitely be finding a new salon to work in, but before I go I want to present her with the actual laws.”

Well, lawyers are more qualified than we are to make legal recommendations, but I highly doubt a lawyer advised her to commit wage theft and told her not to comply with the recordkeeping requirements.

In my experience, most salon owners don’t prioritize legal advice, but are happy to lie about having done so to silence inquisitive employees.

For many of these salon owners, their first contact with a lawyer is after they’ve been served with a civil suit or visited by a DOL investigator for violations (and by then, it’s too late).

Fun fact: attorneys will not advise people to break the law or encourage them to neglect compliance.

Recordkeeping is mandatory in all states for covered employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and most states also have their own recordkeeping requirements as well. The FLSA recordkeeping requirements dictate that employers are to retain records for up to three years, and some states require them to be retained for longer. The FLSA requires no particular form for the records, but does require that the records include certain identifying information about the employee and data about the hours worked and the wages earned, and requires this information to be accurate.

The following is a listing of the basic records that an employer must maintain:

1. Employee’s full name and social security number.
2. Address, including zip code.
3. Birth date, if younger than 19.
4. Sex and occupation.
5. Time and day of week when employee’s workweek begins.
6. Hours worked each day.
7. Total hours worked each workweek.
8. Basis on which employee’s wages are paid
9. Regular hourly pay rate.
10. Total daily or weekly straight-time earnings.
11. Total overtime earnings for the workweek.
12. All additions to or deductions from the employee’s wages.
13. Total wages paid each pay period.
14. Date of payment and the pay period covered by the payment.

If your employer isn’t keeping these records, they’re not in compliance, and that’s a big deal, especially if they’re making impermissible deductions from your wages.

Failure to comply can result in fines, penalties, and all kinds of other nasty consequences. For instance, when it comes to proving compliance with prevailing wage and overtime laws, the burden lies on the employer. Meeting this burden of proof is impossible without time records, so theoretically, an employee can claim they worked far more hours than they actually did, sue the employer for unpaid time, and potentially win if the employer can’t provide records to dispute the claim.

In addition to the FLSA recordkeeping requirements, multiple acts (Federal Unemployment Tax Act, Federal Income Tax Withholding, and Federal Insurance Contribution Act) require employers to record the amount of wages subject to withholding, agreements with employees to withhold additional tax, the amounts of actual taxes withheld and dates withheld, and reasons for any difference between total tax payments and actual tax payments, along with copies of withholding forms. These records must be kept for four years.

Bonus Round! The Occupational Health & Safety Act (for businesses with 10 or more employees), requires owners to retain a log of occupational injuries, illnesses, and exposures to toxic substances, along with all related records and summaries. These records must be retained five years following the year the records pertain to, except for medical exams, MSDS sheets, and exposure to toxic substances records, which must be retained for the duration of the employee’s job tenure PLUS 30 years.

Not only is she required to keep these records, depending on your state laws, she may be required to provide detailed pay stubs routinely, or immediately upon request. Regardless of the applicable laws, if she’s using a computerized system for payroll, she has no excuse not to provide those records.

Visit those links, fire up your printer, and bust out your highlighter. If I were you, I’d put it all together in a neat little packet, with my resignation letter right on top.

Should an investigation into your labor practices be initiated, you cannot point at the salon owners around you and say, “Well, they did it that way! This is the way it has always been done!”

Exploitation of workers should not be customary in any industry.

In my favorite blog post of the month, “It Must Be OK – Everybody Does It!” John E. Thompson of the law firm Fisher & Phillips reinforces this lesson. He writes:

It is tempting to take comfort in platitudes like, “The whole industry pays employees that way,” “Everybody I know of treats those positions as exempt,” “All of my competitors classify these kinds of workers as independent contractors,” “Nobody includes bonuses in figuring overtime,” and so on.

It is legally perilous to pay employees based upon what are thought to be commonly-held views, instead of looking into what the legal requirements and limitations actually are.

Ultimately, the burden is on the employer to educate themselves and ensure they’re in compliance. Laws change frequently, so it’s in your best interest to keep an eye on them. You won’t receive memos about these kinds of things, and you’re expected to comply not just with federal legislation, but state and even city/county laws also.

FLSA litigation is on the rise, and Thompson notes that this is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, just because claims of exploitation are on the rise doesn’t mean that these violations were always permissible. Claims are just receiving more visibility. For that, we have very vocal unions, activists, protesters, and bloggers to thank–and the aggressive efforts of state and federal governments to curb exploitation.

Exacerbating our industry’s issues are accountants, salon “business consulting firms,” and attorneys who operate outside their scope, providing employers with faulty, misleading, or poorly clarified advice. I consult with salon owners often who tell me they’ve been led astray by these professionals. Educators within our own industry continue to perpetuate false information, adding legitimacy to longstanding, illegal practices.

Stop hiding behind the excuse that “everybody does it.” Everybody certainly does not.

Look to corporate salons–businesses which have teams of attorneys structuring their compensation and guiding their HR departments. Regis Corp and JCP salons, for example. Are any of them operating on a “commission-only” all-or-nothing structure? Are they classifying their employees as independent contractors? Are they not tracking hours or failing to provide detailed wage statements? Are they refusing to compensate employees for attending mandatory meetings or training? Are they deducting arbitrary fees from wages? Are they “fining” their employees for tardiness or re-dos? Are they encouraging their employees not to report their tips or requiring them to purchase their own products?

Nope. They’re not. Maybe they know something you don’t know–like the laws that govern American employers.

Do yourself a favor and please go read this article and add the Wage-Hour feed to your subscriptions.

I’ve updated the About page to include all of the law blogs and podcasts I subscribe to, but I encourage you to also seek out ones specific to your area. Attorneys are posting extremely valuable information that costs you nothing to access. Take advantage of it.

The Salon Compensation and Pricing Megakit calculates salon compensation and service pricing for you! It includes:

• • The Salon Compensation and Pricing Calculator, an 8-page spreadsheet system that makes salon compensation and pricing calculation as simple as data entry. The best part? The system is enabled with protections to make it impossible to “break” the formulas!
  • The Salon Compensation and Pricing Guide, a 44-page instruction manual that not only explains how to use the system but also explains every formula so you’re never confused about what the numbers mean or where they came from.
  • A 9-page Employer Obligations Information Sheet to keep you from making very common life-destroying mistakes.
  • Be Worth What You Charge, an 11-page checklist and salon evaluation resource.

$89.99Add to cart

Luckily, Rachael’s son was born HIV-negative. She took him and left her boyfriend, becoming an advocate. She works with the Valley AIDS Council to educate the public about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, urging people to get tested. She’s now married and the virus in her system isn’t detectable, thanks to her medications.

Apparently, she’ll have to spend some time educating a salon owner who rescinded a job offer once she learned of Rachael’s status.

“I disclosed my status to the salon owner and she was OK with it,” Rachael said. “Then two days later, I got a bunch of messages from her on my phone stating that because of my situation — and that I’m so open about it, that with her new salon being open — that she could no longer offer me the job.”

CBS 4 News contacted The Vanity Lash. The owner refused to speak on camera but claimed they’d be making a statement. That statement never came.

In a demonstration of true badassery, Rachael organized a protest outside of the salon.

“I just want people to understand that this isn’t right,” Rachael said. “That’s all, like, I really want is for people to understand that this can happen to anybody and that I’m not going to harm anybody.”

Here’s what I want people to understand:

1.) Get educated about HIV. There’s no excuse not to be, especially if you’re working in the beauty industry.

2.) The ADA and the EEOC protect HIV-positive individuals from employer discrimination.

Not only does the ADA protect HIV-positive individuals, it protects people who are regarded as having (rumored to have) AIDS or HIV, and those who are in close relationships with people who are HIV-positive. What does this mean?

• You can’t discriminate against someone who has HIV.
• You can’t discriminate against someone you suspect has HIV.
• You can’t discriminate against someone with a spouse/partner/child/roommate who has HIV.

If a person is qualified to do the job, it’s highly inadvisable (not to mention unethical) to rescind a job offer on the basis of their HIV status.

“But Tina, we work closely with the public. Doesn’t an HIV-positive professional present a health and safety concern?”

Unless we’re considering potential side effects from the medications used to manage HIV (all of which are highly unlikely to cause any concern in the beauty salon), no. Even if the employer were concerned about the health and safety of the clients, the ADA doesn’t permit them to make judgments based on “generalizations, ignorance, fear, patronizing attitudes, or stereotypes.” Employers are required to establish that a real threat exists “through objective, medically supportable methods.”

Transmission of HIV will rarely be a legitimate “direct threat” issue. If HIV-positive surgeons are clear to operate in the United States, you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that an HIV-positive stylist shouldn’t be permitted to work on the basis of their status.

However, the ADA only Requires Employers With fifteen or more employees to comply.

Yeah, you read that right, and no, it doesn’t make any sense to me either. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t a legal issue, it’s a moral one. Denying a qualified person a position on the basis of something they have no control over is wrong. HIV-positive individuals don’t deserve to be ostracized or excluded.

This salon owner’s ignorance is shameful and her actions are deplorable. I’m certain she’s aware of this, or she would have had the decency to discuss her reasons to Rachael’s face instead of through text messages.

Character weakness and cowardice won’t make for successful or effective leadership. Legally, she may walk away from this, but at the very least, she owes Rachael an apology.

You may not have to rely on the ADA 15-employee requirement, but many states and cities have their own anti-discrimination laws to protect workers. (Unfortunately, the anti-discrimination laws in Texas are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.)

If you believe you’ve been the victim of HIV discrimination, speak with an attorney or consider filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 180 days. The EEOC investigates complaints and will either act to correct the problem or give the employee a “right to sue” letter, permitting the employee to pursue the employer in court for the job they were denied, back pay, benefits, or other compensatory and punitive damages.

For more information about the ADA’s employment requirements, please call the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at (800)669-4000 (voice) or (800)669-6820 (TDD).

Keep being a badass, Rachael. <3