Professional Licensure: To Eliminate Or Expand? - Granite Grok

Professional Licensure: To Eliminate Or Expand?

“None can love freedom but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope than under tyrants.” —John Milton

The Union Leaders‘ opposite editorial page give Erica Bickford, a licensed massage therapist from Wolfeboro, ink today not only arguing against House Bill 446, but actually advocating for its’ defeat.

To advocate for licensure on the basis of public health interest is a separate matter from seeking governmental force in protecting an exclusive business interest. Bickford queries, “Would you allow your children to cut your hair?” Actually, there are many people out there cutting hair in kitchens with scissors and clippers purchased at Walmart or Target none of whom have ever enrolled in a 1,500-hour cosmetology or barbering program.  And that has always been the case. Erica then asks, Would you allow an untrained person help you recover from an athletic injury? There are people out there telling others to rest, apply ice, compression and elevation who have never taken a sports medicine class or sat for a licensing exam. Unlicensed mediators currently exist largely as clergy and lay ministers who rarely extract a fee to counsel their parishioners.

The whole need for licensing has become a quest for trade exclusivity. If many who advocate for licensure were truly honest, they would see much of the licensing endured today is merely to maintain that exclusivity. Licensing boards are typically comprised of those individuals from the regulated profession where such boards enjoy the coercive power of government. Consequently, licensing requirements have been expanded and frequently exceed public health and safety objectives, becoming an economic restraint thereby reducing competition by newcomers and upstarts.

Bickford goes on, By requiring barbers, hairdressers, estheticians, massage therapists, etc, to be licensed and educated, you can be assured that they know how to protect you and themselves from contaminants (fungal infections, bacterial infections, viral infections, etc). The present licensing system of Barbers and hairstylists currently places more emphasis on business exclusivity than protecting the public. I have seen very bad haircuts, chemical burns, and lice infestations, caused by “licensed stylists” whose ineptitude diminishes the public health and safety argument.  To say that the primary objective of licensure is to ensure public protection is disingenuous at best. Mandated Sanitization and Sterilization practices in salons and Barber shops are only as effective as the conscientious stylist or barber who practices them.

A typical cosmetology student attends a school for 1,500 hours and then takes a state board. The licensing exam consists of a practical test where one demonstrates techniques and skills learned in school. Hair cutting, shaping, manipulation and movement of hair are central to the practical skills test. The written exam contains questions relating to the same with only about a handful of those questions relating to sanitization and sterilization. Surprisingly, the emphasis in the exam focuses primarily on technical skills and less on sanitization and sterilization, and disease prevention practices. Yet, Salons are inspected annually and the focus of such an inspection is sanitization and sterilization practices, and do not address skills tested at State Board exams.

It has been argued that licensure reduces inequities within professions, but in all reality, licensure increases inequity and creates up-front costs to break into a profession. Those among us who are economically challenged are barred from professions by licensing laws.

Licensure is a veiled form of worker protection.  “Unions” for Republicans who hate Unions., if you will. While Ms. Bickford’s argues for protection of the public, her stronger argument is for exclusive trade protection and that is not an appropriate role for the state.

Plumbers, Electricians, Emergency Medical Technicians, Doctors, and many others in the medical profession show us a demonstrative need for licensure. But even those venues have limits. Take Electrical and plumbing for example. I recently had a vacant apartment and after having been occupied for many years, the place was long overdue for some upgrades, I completed the work myself, consisting of plumbing and electrical work, saving me tens of thousands of dollars. All of the work performed meets or exceeds local code, was done in a workmanship-like manner with  nothing jury-rigged or improvised. All of the work performed was within my scope of capability and meets mandated requirements. Inveresely, when I upgraded my heating system, several years ago, I hired a licensed contractor to perform that work. And, when I upgraded the electrical service to my home, a licensed electrician was hired for that. Most fair-minded people understand when work is, beyond their scope of capability.

Those who cut hair have a saying: The only difference between a good haircut and a bad one is six weeks…”  Hair grows. And for all the licensed barbers and hairstylists we are never in short supply of bad haircuts or bad hair coloring. Government licensing should be limited in scope and not for using government force to protect the exclusive few trades. Risky Sanitation practices should be regulated. Bad haircuts should not. The marketplace does that quite effectively.

An example of the never-ending quest of licensure manifested itself in Louisiana recently. Under Louisiana code, it is unlawful for anyone but a licensed funeral director to sell “funeral merchandise,” which includes caskets.  The monks of Saint Joseph Abbey of Saint Benedict, La. provided for themselves by creating and selling handmade caskets. Under Louisiana code, however,, it was unlawful for anyone but a licensed funeral director to sell caskets.

To sell the caskets, the law would require the monks to apprentice for a full year at a licensed funeral home and convert a portion of their monastery into a “funeral establishment” which would also include installation of embalming equipment….Just so that they could sell caskets. But in July, Judge Duval of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana ruled,

“Simply put, there is nothing in the licensing procedures that bestows any benefit to the public in the context of the retail sale of caskets.  The license has no bearing on the manufacturing and sale of coffins.  It appears that the sole reason for these laws is the economic protection of the funeral industry which reason the Court has previously found not to be a valid government interest standing alone to provide a constitutionally valid reason for these provisions.”

Somewhere between total oppressive licensure and no licensure at all is the direction the Granite State needs to go. Economic protection of industries is not a proper government role. Perhaps HB 446 is overreaching in its present form because the elimination of all forms of licensing is unwise and detrimental. It is an appropriate role of government to oversee those things which have a potential to injure or kill people.  Licensing mandates that go beyond the scope of serving the public benefit should be eliminated.

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