Self-contracting workplaces, like Salon Deja Vu, especially struggling during pandemic

By JACOB MARROCCO

Business was going well for Debra Skomin at Salon Deja Vu in Johnston, which she recently expanded just a few years ago.

The salon has been operating for nearly two decades, but now Skomin finds herself in the same situation as hundreds of businesses across the state since the coronavirus pandemic took hold. She hasn’t worked in six weeks, and despite new unemployment measures for self-employed and gig workers, still has not received her first check.

Skomin said salons face a trickier scenario, too, as most of them don’t have any employees. She explained that most workers basically serve as contractors, renting out there spot in the salon.

“So most salons, barbershops, nail salons, they’re self-contracted,” Skomin told the Sun Rise in an interview last week. “They rent their spot out in the salon. A lot of people don’t know that, so they [think], ‘Oh, everybody’s on a big vacation and still getting paid,’ when they’re not.”

For that reason, she said, she cannot apply for the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program. She has applied for other grants and sources of funding, but has been disqualified because of lack of employees. She also would not have been able to file for unemployment under the conditions of the loan.

“Basically, this has affected many salon owners, small businesses and self-employed across the board, and we’ve been repeatedly told there were resources and funding that apparently we don’t qualify for or are not available yet and we just keep hitting roadblocks,” Skomin said. “I just think that the government has failed us in particular, because if I’m not considered a business and not qualified because I don’t have employees, then why am I paying for multiple business licenses and taxes, et cetera?”

Skomin said she also applied for funding strictly set aside for women in business, but did not receive any because of its lottery system – more than 55,000 applicants vied for money that could only assist up to 250 of them.

Skomin has had trouble not only obtaining her first unemployment check, but also the status of her stimulus money.

“Now generally people that file their taxes, if they get money back, they have it put it into an account and they already provide their banking and checking account numbers, whereas for us self-employed and gig workers, they don’t have our bank account number because they don’t give us money back,” Skomin said. “We have to pay in. So once again, the website said the stimulus checks will go out or that they’re supposed to be setting up a website for that [already did] so you can check for any information where it will be deposited.”

That website, though, has been difficult to access for Skomin because of heavy traffic.

“My main grief is that I don’t think they took in account for a lot of the small businesses,” Skomin said. “Small gift shops or mom-and-pop stores, they’re never going to come back from this. Even though the person who owns the building has worked with me on my rent, but yet it still has to be paid back by the end of the year.”

Skomin continues to search for funding resources, but she fears there aren’t enough established to help people like her.

“Whatever I felt I was trying to do, I was hitting roadblocks,” Skomin said. “Some of the girls have been still paying their rent and some are paying partial rent … we’re all trying to work together as a team, because if I can’t pay my rent, they can’t go back to work, either. If they’re not paying their rent, I can’t pay my rent.”