It's a STEAL! But From Whom, Exactly, Are You Stealing?

I've complained a lot in this blog about corporations and executives, about bankers behaving badly (example, here) and about corporations blaming everyone for a disaster except themselves (I'm talkin' 'bout you, BP, here).

But I've also tried to look at the things that I do wrong, the things that we all as consumers do (and don't do) that could make a difference in the ethical landscape in which we move and breathe. My very first post for this blog (here) asked us all to think about toilet tissue, recycling, and whether softness was worth deforestation.

And I've thought about whether a $101 pair of sneakers would be as nice as $100 pair (here). Read the labels, I exhort (here), even though those labels rarely provide any real information.

So here I am, back again, asking us all to think about ... nail salons. And what that mani-pedi is really worth.

Yesterday's New York Times carried a devastating piece by Sarah Maslin Nir on "the price of nice nails" (full article, here), since picked up by outlets as varied as Business Insider (here) and Jezebel (here). Nir spent months researching salons, talking to the Korean, Chinese, and Hispanic women who work in them, detailing the wage theft (including tip-skimming), horrendous hours, and deep racism. It's a depressing read.

As Nir said herself in a follow-up interview (here),

There is no such thing as a cheap luxury. It's an oxymoron. The only way that you can have something decadent for a cheap price is by someone being exploited. Your discount manicure is on the back of the person giving it. Everybody I asked said, "I know it's too cheap." Everybody knows that something is off...

Many of the salon workers are immigrants, often without documentation. Many don't speak English. So they don't know that $3 / hour, or even $10 per day, is an illegally low wage. Most work insane hours (because how else can you get by on $3 per hour?), and get no overtime pay. Most also pay fees to their employers for "training".

Of the "more than 100" employees Nir interviewed (with the assistance of Spanish, Chinese, and Korean translators), less than one-quarter were making anything close to New York's minimum wage of $8.75 an hour (slightly less for "tipped" jobs), but when tip-skimming, no overtime, and fees were factored in, only three had salaries close to the minimum.

The racism is jarring. In Manhattan, 70-80 percent of nail salons are Korean-owned. And if you're not Korean yourself, you will not get a shot at the best jobs there.

Many Korean owners are frank about their prejudices. "Spanish employees" are not as smart as Koreans, or as sanitary, said [one Korean salon owner]....

Salon owners may also exploit their Hispanic employees because they know their desperation, "often drowning under large debts owed to 'coyotes' who smuggled them across the border."

Even if salon owners are caught cheating their employees, things don't necessarily improve:

In rare instances when owners have been found guilty of wage theft, salons have often been quickly sold, sometimes to relatives. The original proprietors vanish, along with their assets, according to prosecutors. Even if they do not, collecting back wages is difficult. Owners can claim they do not have the means to pay, and it is often impossible to prove otherwise, given how unreliable salons' financial records are.

Despite winning a landmark court award of over $474,000 in 2012 for underpayment [April 2012 Times story, here], six manicurists from a chain of Long Island salons under the name Babi have so far received less than a quarter of that, they said. The chain's owner, In Bae Kim, said he did not have the money, even though records show he sold his house for $1.13 million and a commercial property for $2 million just before the trial.

So what's a woman who just wants nice nails to do?

Well, there's always the do-it-yourself route.

Nir does have three suggestions, in a follow-up article that appeared today:

Her first suggestion is to talk to your manicurist: Ask her what she's being paid, or if she get to keep her tips, or if her employer charges a "training fee". If you're not satisfied with the answers, Nir's article includes a hotline for the state labor department.

Nir also recommends being observant:

At one shop in SoHo, manicurists do something unusual when they walk in the door: They punch in with a timecard at a machine near the front desk. Such a device... suggests that [workers'] hours are being tabulated accurately by their employer, and that they are being paid overtime if necessary. But it is not a guarantee. Salons frequently keep a second set of books, according to salon owners, which lists people they are paying under the table.

Nir's final recommendation is simple: pay more. There's no way a salon can pay Manhattan rents, heat, light, etc., and a living wage to its employees, while charging customers $10.50 for a manicure. A higher price, of course, does not guarantee that your extra dollars are going to the women caring for your hands, but a lower price pretty much guarantees that wages are being stolen. Note that this does not necessarily mean "tip more" -- tips are frequently skimmed, and according to Nir, if paid by credit-card, are often not delivered at all.

So now how do you feel about that mani-pedi "steal"? Personally, I feel sick.