Cuomo Orders Emergency Measures to Protect Workers at Nail Salons
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo
ordered emergency measures on Sunday to combat the wage theft and
health hazards faced by the thousands of people who work in New York
State’s nail salon industry.
Effective
immediately, he said in a statement, a new, multiagency task force will
conduct salon-by-salon investigations, institute new rules that salons
must follow to protect manicurists from the potentially dangerous
chemicals found in nail products, and begin a six-language education
campaign to inform them of their rights.
Nail
salons that do not comply with orders to pay workers back wages, or are
unlicensed, will be shut down. The new rules come in response to a New
York Times investigation of nail salons — first published online last
week — that detailed the widespread exploitation of manicurists, many of whom have illnesses that some scientists and health advocates say are caused by the chemicals with which they work.
“New
York State has a long history of confronting wage theft and unfair
labor practices head on, and today, with the formation of this new
Enforcement Task Force, we are aggressively following in that
tradition,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “We will not stand idly by as
workers are deprived of their hard-earned wages and robbed of their
most basic rights.”
Unvarnished
Articles in this series are examining the working conditions
and potential health risks endured by nail salon workers.
The
swiftly assembled plans, while still taking shape, are the start of an
effort to reshape an industry that has been a major entry point for
immigrants into the city’s economy, but in which exploiting the people
who toil over hands and feet appears to be, in many instances, simply
the way business is done.
Salons
will be required to publicly post signs that inform workers of their
rights, including the fact that it is illegal to work without wages or
to pay money for a job — a common practice in the nail salon industry,
according to workers and owners. The signs will be in half a dozen
languages, including those most spoken in the industry — Korean, Chinese
and Spanish.
The emergency measures announced on Sunday will become permanent in the coming months, the governor’s office said.
Under
new rules, manicurists must wear gloves to reduce the risks of
contracting skin conditions, such as fungal infections and warts, and
developing burns from handling chemicals.
The
plan currently will also require masks, though occupational health
experts say the hospital-style masks that manicurists sometimes wear
give only the appearance of safety. Such masks do almost nothing to
prevent exposure to chemicals, such as dibutyl phthalate, toluene and
formaldehyde, that are used in nail products and have been linked to
leukemia and fetal defects. And salons will be required to be
ventilated, to reduce the chemical fumes.
The
state’s Health Department, one of the agencies in the task force, will
conduct a study of the most effective safety practices, and the eventual
rules put in place may change in scope depending upon the findings.
Salons
will now be required to be bonded — which is intended to ensure,
through a contract with a bonding agency, that workers can eventually be
paid if salon owners are found to have underpaid the workers. The move
is an attempt to counteract the phenomenon of salon owners’ hiding
assets when they are found guilty of wage theft.
Many
workers are undocumented and fear exposing themselves to the
authorities, so they rarely speak up. The agencies involved in the task
force do not inquire about workers’ immigration status as part of their
investigations, the governor’s office said. An education campaign will
also be introduced through community groups to inform workers they have
the right be compensated fully, regardless of their immigration status,
and encourage them to report mistreatment.
The
framework for the emergency measures began to take shape shortly after
the first article was published on Thursday, according to Alphonso B.
David, counsel for the governor. Staff members from several agencies
reacted strongly, and began to call one another upon reading the
findings, convening on Friday for hours of brainstorming sessions to
hash out the plan. A decision was made to take emergency measures rather
than go through the usual route by which policies are updated, which
involve time-consuming steps like periods of public comment, Mr. David
said.
“The article highlighted a significant problem in New York State,” Mr. David said. “We cannot wait to address the problem.”
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