6 New York Nail Salons in Violation of Labor Laws to Pay $200,000 in Back Wages
Six nail salons on Long Island, N.Y., will be paying more than $200,000 in back wages and damages to 95 employees after an investigation done by the Long Island district office of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.
In a statement given Wednesday, Irv Miljoner, the director of the Long Island district office, said, “Nail salon workers cannot afford to be underpaid. The industry employs vulnerable workers less likely to complain about unfair labor practices because of language barriers and fear of losing their jobs.”
The news from Long Island is hardly an outlier; since the New York Times ran a startling exposé into the exploitation of nail salon employees throughout Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs in May 2015, New York state launched a task force on nail salon safety and labor practices. The group has already found close to 150 nail salons in violation of labor laws and in need of issuing $2 million in unpaid wages to 652 workers. And last month the task force imposed a new rule requiring all nail salons in the state to have ventilation systems in place for workers’ health. Additionally, all nail salons opening Oct. 3 or later will have to have such a ventilation system in order to conduct business; existing salons have five years to install a system in existing spaces.
New York’s efforts to ensure that nail salon workers are treated fairly include ensuring that all workers are paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week and implementing clear pay scales for tipped and nontipped workers alike: Tipped nail salon workers making at least $2.20 per hour in tips must earn at least $6.80 per hour during the first week of work — a time many nail salons do not pay employees or deduct wages because of training — and $11.30 per hour after they’ve completed their first 40 hours of work per week. Workers who make at least $1.35 an hour in tips must make at least $7.65 an hour in wages during this training period, and then $12.15 per hour afterward. Nontipped workers must make $9 per hour during training and $13.50 afterward.
The state makes clear that employers may never take tips or wages from workers or pay them less than minimum wage and that, contrary to the findings in the Times investigation, workers should never pay to apply for a job, acquire a job, or train for a job. It is likewise illegal to force workers to ever pay any fees as “punishment” or for any breakage or damage of supplies. Nail salon owners in New York are now also required by the task force to display a workers’ bill of rights poster in a variety of languages in their salons in a place clearly visible to all employees.
The concerns regarding the health and labor practices of nail salons extend beyond New York.
A grassroots labor advocacy group in California, the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, is sponsoring a number of bills in the state’s legislature to bolster recognition for nail salons that implement safer practices and use healthier products to better protect the health of workers and customers. Other initiatives include providing better labor law education services for nail salon employees, including ensuring that such educational programs are made accessible for Spanish- and Vietnamese-speaking workers.
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