Viet nail salon workers tell of abuses by state inspectors

Abusive, unlawful and harassing conduct by inspectors employed by the California Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology were so rampant, attendants at the nail salon town hall overwhelmed the state officials on the panel with complaints.

The town hall meeting took place a week before yesterday, on October 5, at Coastline College’s Le-Jao Center. Because the Bolsavik promised to report about it for Viet Tide magazine, he couldn’t write about it on here until today.

The inspectors coming to the nail salons are so abusive, in everyday conversation the Vietnamese nail salon workers always refer to them by their titles in English – as “inspector” of the “State Board” (the Bureau used to be a Board) – even when speaking in Vietnamese.

One speaker at the town hall meeting, put together by the office of State Senator Lou Correa, compared the inspectors to “communist police force.”

These inspectors would come to the salons, flash their badge, and yell “Inspector. Don’t move! Don’t talk! Stay where you are!” — as if the workers were criminals. As one speaker told this story, he asked, “Does anyone else have this experience?” and almost a hundred arms shot up.

Even though the salon owners have the right to accompany the inspector and to ask questions, one owner reported that when she started asking questions, the inspector said, “If you’re asking questions, I’m doubling the fine.”

One owner told of a time when she got fined because, of 1 of 12 cleaning logs, the worker wrote the date European-style: date-month-year. The inspector gave a $500 fine for failing to maintain the logs, multiplied by 12 including the 11 perfectly correct logs, for a whopping total of $6,000.

Another told of an inspector who approved of the way cleaning logs are kept, but the next year fined her for the same logs kept just the same way as the previous year.

One owner accused the inspector of taking pictures of all the customers as they walked into the salon.

Another said she had 7 spa chairs and 5 workers, so there are 2 chairs sitting empty. The inspector came and gave him a $1,000 fine for having 2 spa chairs without licenses.

When one nail worker asked the Cal-OSHA representative about the safety a particular brand of barbicide, it also came to light that the Bureau’s inspectors have been going around demanding that the salon owners buy barbicide of one particular brand, in clear violation of law.

The Bureau’s top boss, Executive Director Kristy Underwood, got her ears full with these and dozens of similar stories of abuses of power by the Bureau’s inspectors (one person said “Everyone in South Central L.A. knew of Rosa, a real evil inspector”). Also present at the townhall meeting were her boss, Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs Carrie Lopez, and representatives of the State Labor Commission and Cal-OSHA.

In the photo above is Kristy Underwood in pink, listening to even more grievances when the townhall meeting ended.

The Bolsavik’s cover-page story on the meeting appears on Viet Tide; PDF here (in Vietnamese).