Divide seen on job licensing
The first strains of a political fight are beginning to take shape between government deregulators and some Oklahoma industries.
A task force is developing a blueprint for evaluating job licensing requirements, but several business owners in fields requiring an occupational license urged caution Wednesday during a public hearing.
Lowell Roberts, who owns a locksmith business and chairs his state association’s legislative action committee, said he wants to protect Oklahomans.
“And if a license is what it takes to protect them, that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.
Critics of occupational licensing laws regularly mention cosmetology careers when highlighting what they say are excessive rules. Hair-braiding services, for example, can only be provided for payment by someone who has 600 hours of training and passes an exam.
Reforming licensing laws has broad support across the partisan aisle. At Wednesday’s hearing, representatives from a pro-business advocacy group and a left-leaning think tank sat next to each other in support of the task force’s work. They fervently argued for a review of occupational licensing, which they said creates barriers to military families who move across state lines, people who are poor and former prisoners who are now looking for work.
When the task force’s blueprint is finalized and policy makers begin evaluating all licensing requirements, more careers will come under scrutiny.
Salon owner Jan Hill said there are serious reasons for her employees to need governmental oversight. Aside from hair styling, she said, people in cosmetology trades must know how to avoid chemical burns, infection, hair damage, nail separation, skin pigmentation problems and other maladies.
“We do a lot more than just cut hair,” she said. “If you damage somebody’s skin or give them an infection such as SARS or MRSA, I think the public has the right to go to an agency and file a complaint.”
She said the minimum schooling needed to earn a cosmetology license, now at 1,500 hours, still doesn’t cover every service a licensed cosmetologist can legally perform. Hill also “felt clobbered” by testimony Wednesday that described how a cosmetology career is an ideal profession for people in poverty or with a criminal background because it offers good pay compared with the time put in learning it.
“I’m proud of my license,” Hill said. “Just because I’m a licensed cosmetologist doesn’t mean I’m of a lesser intelligence. So why can’t my license be held in high regard rather than low regard?”
The Occupational Licensing Task Force, led by Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Melissa Houston, is accepting public comments on the blueprint until the end of the month.