Like thousands of other Vietnamese-American women in California, Emily Micelli started painting nails to support herself. She turned that weekend job into a two-decade-long career as a manicurist, and now offers her own nail art designs at an upscale Newport Beach salon.
This year, she found her livelihood upended by a few words in the state labor code.
Like other workers in the beauty industry, state-licensed nail technicians were granted an exemption from Assembly Bill 5, the sweeping 2019 law targeting the gig economy that required many employers to classify workers as employees rather than independent contractors…