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At this point, you’ve probably read The New York Times’ series that exposes the horrid conditions under which New York’s nail salon staff are forced to work. (If you haven’t you should.) Now, New York’s Governor Mario Cuomo has taken some preliminary steps to halt the wage theft and dangerous work conditions that workers have suffered with.
Those steps start with an Enforcement Task Force that will go from salon to salon conducting inspections. In addition, there will new rules to protect the health of workers, tutorials and public signage in six languages to make sure salon workers are aware of their rights to wages and safe work conditions, and nail salons will be ordered to pay back wages and follow the rules or be forced to shut down.
And in a particularly aggressive move, salons will now have to be bonded so that workers will get paid even when owners try to hide assets, a practice that, according to the Times exposé, is also common.
Workers have been deprived of their rights, in part, because many of them are in the US without proper documentation. The members of the task force will not ask about immigration status, hopefully making workers more forthcoming about any wrongdoing.
