Cuomo Orders Crackdown on Abuse of Nail Salon Workers 'Robbed of Their Most Basic Rights'

Lawmakers are taking action to curb abuses of nail salon workers following a recent New York Times series entitled “Unvarnished,” which documented the exploitation of workers across the region, including at salons on Long Island.

On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the launch of multi-agency enforcement task force that he says will go to work immediately to prevent unlawful practices and unsafe working conditions in the nail salon industry.

“We will not stand idly by as workers are deprived of their hard-earned wages and robbed of their most basic rights,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This task force will crack down on these kinds of abuses in the nail salon industry, enforce all of New York’s health and safety regulations, and help ensure that no one – regardless of their citizenship status or what language they speak – is illegally victimized by their employer.”

The New York Times exposé details how many nail salon employees face routine ethnic bias and other abuse, along with being grossly underpaid. The Times refers to three Long Island salons in its series– Bee Nails in Hicksville, Relaxing Town Nails and Spa in Huntington Station and an unnamed salon in East Northport. In a lawsuit, workers at the East Nortport salon claimed they were paid $1.50 an hour during a 66-hour work week, the TImes reported.

Agencies involved with the new state task force will, according to Cuomo, ”work together to implement new health and safety regulations for nail salon employees and engage in new enforcement actions to recover unpaid wages, issue fines and penalties for violations of all relevant laws and regulations, assess damages and evaluate whether to revoke the license of violators.”

Long Island Rep. Kathleen Rice has sent a letter to Dr. David Michaels, the assistant secretary of labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), pushing for reformed health standards for nail salon workers nationwide. In the letter, Rice refers to research and news reports that “link prolonged exposure to nail salon chemicals to cancer, severe respiratory diseases, and debilitating skin disorders.”

“It’s absolutely appalling that workers in any industry could be forced to suffer such conditions in 21st century America,” Rice said in a statement.

The state task force is strongly urging any worker who has not been paid the proper wages, or anyone concerned about safety, working conditions or other abuses at nail salons to contact the task force at 1-888-469-7365.

Learn more about the task force here. Read Rice’s full letter here. Read the New York Times series here.

Photo: Flickr/Creative Commons/madame.furie

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