The Real Cost Of That Manicure

In a neighborhood with no shortage of nail salons, you may want to think about what it takes to keep those businesses competitive, which an investigative report published today in The New York TImes explores in detail.

After a year compiling research and conduction interviews, reporter Sarah Maslin Nir — who told Vice she was driven to write the piece after a manicurist told her she was working 24 hours a day, 6 days a week at a salon in Koreatown — found that workers are often paid as little as $10 a day, live in squalid apartments sometimes owned by their bosses, and are occasionally punished monetarily, or even physically, for small transgressions. And, perhaps worst of all, there’s very little oversight happening to prevent such injustices.

The bosses, who themselves often represent immigrant success stories, the Times found to be defensive of these business practices:

“They don’t stop to think how difficult it is nowadays to keep the door of our business open to service people,” Romelia M. Agudo, the former owner of a Park Slope salon, Romy’s Nails, wrote in an affidavit asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit by two of her employees who said they were underpaid and denied lunch breaks.

The story, which was published simultaneously in four languages so the 100-plus salon workers Nir interviewed can read it, is a long one, but definitely a worthwhile read — check it out here.