Manicurists in the New York City area are badly exploited and the government is not keeping up with labor law violations, a
New York Times investigation shows. Many salon owners demand that the workers, overwhelmingly immigrant women, pay to work at first, under the guise of training—but even once they're "trained," the wages are often illegally low.
The Times' long-term investment in this story highlighting illegal labor practices and the human cost of a cheap mani-pedi is a striking contrast to the paper's political coverage of late, but this is the kind of reporting that helps restore your faith in the traditional media. Sarah Maslin Nir reports that not only are workers paid below the minimum wage and not paid overtime, but some employers defend these practices:
At Sona Nails on First Avenue near Stuyvesant Town, a worker said she made $35 a day. Sona Grung, the owner of Sona Nails, denied paying below minimum wage, yet defended the practice, particularly of underpaying new workers. “When a beginner comes in, they don’t know anything, and they give you a job,” she said. “If you work in a nail salon for $35, it’s very good.”
Salons are more likely to break labor laws than to obey them, but enforcement is limited and penalties are rarely paid:
Last year, the New York State Labor Department, in conjunction with several other agencies, conducted its first nail salon sweep ever — about a month after The Times sent officials there an inquiry regarding their enforcement record with the industry. Investigators inspected 29 salons and found 116 wage violations. [...]
In rare instances when owners have been found guilty of wage theft, salons have often been quickly sold, sometimes to relatives. The original proprietors vanish, along with their assets, according to prosecutors. Even if they do not, collecting back wages is difficult. Owners can claim they do not have the means to pay, and it is often impossible to prove otherwise, given how unreliable salons’ financial records are.
And the workers, vulnerable in so many ways, are on the front lines of inequality in America:
Qing Lin, 47, a manicurist who has worked on the Upper East Side for the last 10 years, still gets emotional when recounting the time a splash of nail polish remover marred a customer’s patent Prada sandals. When the woman demanded compensation, the $270 her boss pressed into the woman’s hand came out of the manicurist’s pay. Ms. Lin was asked not to return.
“I am worth less than a shoe,” she said.
Do yourself a favor and
read the whole thing.
(The reporter, Sarah Nir, is the sister of Daily Kos political director David Nir.)
11:02 AM PT: Nail salon workers also face health problems from working with chemicals all day, as the second part of the Times' investigation details.