Horrific Exploitation of NY Nail Salon Workers

The New York Times is out with a new investigation into nail salons in the region.  It tells the story of manicurists living and working in deplorable conditions. 
 
Reporter Sarah Maslin Nir led the year-long investigation into Tri-State area salons. She says most nail salons are supplied by manicurists from Queens. Nir spent a year interviewing over 100 women as they waited on street corners to be picked up for work. But she says she approached close to 300.
 
"This is a demographic that doesn't want its story told, and for really understandable reasons," Nir said.
 
Nir says many of these women are in the country illegally and are often times in serious debt upon arrival. She says manicurists are frequently forced to live in cramped, substandard housing, most of which is attached to salons or salon owners' homes.
 
"It's such a crazy juxtaposition: they sit on Madison Avenue holding hands with women of unimaginable affluence and go back to these decrepit apartments," Nir said.
 
Nir says most manicurists can't afford to live anywhere else. She says it costs them about $200 in illegal fees to even begin working. Nir says manicurists then have to work for free until their bosses deem them skilled enough for pay. And once they finally start making money, Nir says a racist hierarchy determines manicurists' wages. She says Korean women earn the most, followed by Chinese, with Hispanic women at the bottom. But Nir says no matter where a manicurist stands on the totem pole, she likely earns far below minimum wage.
 
"The [nail salon] industry is predicated on a fallacy: the oxymoron 'cheap luxury,'" Nir said. "There is no such thing.  The truth is, someone is bearing the cost of your discount, and in this case, it's always the worker, the person who can least afford to bear that cost."
 
Nir says legislation so-far drafted related to nail salons, including a bill going through the New York City Council that would require all salons to have letter grades like restaurants, are more focused on consumer-safety than protecting workers.  

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