NY Times’ 13-Month Investigation of Nail Salon Workers Exploitation

Your cheap manicure comes at a price — and it’s a price that your manicurist is paying for. The New York Times just published reporter Sarah Maslin Nir’s 13-month-long investigation the labor conditions of New York City nail salons, where beginning manicurists pay $100 to salon owners for the “privilege” of working there before they start to earn an average of $10-$30 per day. It’s an incredible investigation with additional reporting and research done by Sarah Cohen, Jiha Ham, Jeanne Li, Yuhan Liu, Julie Turkewitz, Isvett Verde, Yeong-Ung Yang and Heyang Zhang, and Susan C. Beachy — and the story is unprecedentedly also published in Chinese, Korean, and Spanish in hopes that the workers, many of whom who face language barriers, will read it, too.

Here is an example of the disparity between client and manicurist:

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.

Here is an heartbreaking excerpt about how workers are exploited in this local, female-dominated industry:

Salon workers describe a culture of subservience that extends far beyond the pampering of customers. Tips or wages are often skimmed or never delivered, or deducted as punishment for things like spilled bottles of polish. At her Harlem salon, Ms. Cacho said she and her colleagues had to buy new clothes in whatever color the manager decided was fashionable that week. Cameras are regularly hidden in salons, piping live feeds directly to owners’ smartphones and tablets.

Nir tells Vice in an interview, “The idea of cheap luxury is an oxymoron. It doesn’t exist. The only way that nail salons exist and manicures exist at the price they are in New York City is with someone else bearing the cost of your discount. And in New York City the person bearing the cost is the worker—and that’s the person who can least afford it.”

This is a must read. Click here to read the full story.