Initiative seeks to empower, protect nail salon workers
Employees, mainly newcomers, face exposure to chemicals and wage theft, advocates say
Nikki Huang worked in nail salons across the GTA for two years after she arrived in Canada as a student from China in 2014.
During that time, she says she often worked 10-hour days, received no training on the use of potentially hazardous products and was shortchanged $3,000 on her wages by her last employer.
“For rights at work, I would say the employer probably prefers the employees didn’t know much about it,” says the 28-year-old Markham resident.
That is what the Nail Technicians’ Network is now seeking to change — emulating successful efforts in places like California to organize low-wage immigrant women and encourage safer working conditions.
The initiative was born out of the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre’s nail salon workers pro- ject, launched in 2013 to identify and tackle health concerns including exposure to toxic substances with links to a range of health conditions such as cancer, respiratory illnesses, neurological damage and reproductive issues. There are over 1,120 licensed nail salons in the Toronto area.
A 2015 report from the project, which has visited more than 80 workplaces, found a lack of training, limited access to safety information and language barriers all conspired to put workers at risk — particularly at budget establishments where competition to keep prices as low as possible is ferocious.
Crucially, says project co-lead Anne Rochon Ford, there were few spaces where women, largely newcomers from Vietnam and China, could come together and advocate for themselves on the job.
“It’s an absolutely critical piece to making change. They need an opportunity to test out their voice.”
Yan Chen, a community legal worker with the Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (CSALC) has helped spearhead that effort, which began last year with delivering informational flyers and establishing a social media presence on platforms such as WeChat.
The Nail Technicians’ Network is now expanding to offer free workshops where workers can learn about their basic employment rights and connect to free English classes. It also brings women together for outings, such as a trip to Centre Island planned for workers and their children next week.
Chen says many salons evade minimum workplace standards by misclassifying employees as independent contractors who are not covered by Ontario employment legislation. (True independent contractors are usually workers who set their own schedule, use their own workplace equipment, and can’t be suspended or dismissed.)
“We talk about the difference between independent contractors and employees at the salon and many of (the women) are not aware of this,” she says.
“For my experience, I worked for three different salons in two years and most employers regard the employees as selfemployed. So there’s minimum wage and no overtime,” adds Huang, who eventually won back her stolen wages with the help of CSALC.
In 2013, the Ministry of Labour conducted an employment standards inspection blitz focused on nail salons and found that 60 per cent of the 92 employers investigated were breaking the law. Common violations include infractions around vacation pay, public holiday pay, wage statements and record keeping.
Other issues identified by the Nail Technicians’ Network in- clude employers forcing nail salon workers to pay to apprentice at a salon, verbal abuse on the job and lack of statutory deductions on paycheques.
“Sometimes we see really pregnant women still working in nail salons. What we heard is they need to save up the cash money because they will not get (employment insurance) benefits,” Chen says.
Minh-Trang Nguyen, also a community legal worker with CSALC helping mobilize Vietnamese women for the network, says many newcomers enter the industry as a way to get a foot into the labour market in Canada.
“Some nail technicians can get a lot of money, but some have a horrible life in nail salons,” she says.
In jurisdictions such as California, this recognition has led to tangible steps to raise standards, including a legislated certification program for salon owners who choose to ban suspect ingredients from products they use and to provide proper training, ventilation, gloves and masks for employees.
According to the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, 89 per cent of the 10,000 chemicals used in personal care products have not been tested for their impact on human health.
A 2015 investigation conducted by the New York Times also revealed widespread hazards and abuses in the sector, leading to New York state introducing mandatory ventilation systems in salons to protect manicurists.
“We know that doing the kind of thing we’re doing — going in and doing workshops and health promotions — is good and it’s important,” Ford says. “But the bigger issues have to be dealt with at the political and regulatory level.”
That means action from all three levels of government, Ford adds.
Municipally, she wants to see things such as minimum product safety standards be a requirement for licensing.
Provincially, she believes stronger health and safety oversight from the Ministry of Labour is imperative.
And federally, she believes stricter regulation of chemicals is key.
“We’ve been trying to make inroads there in impressing upon the federal government that these decisions have consequences down the line and make people sick. And that costs our health-care system.
“This population of mostly immigrant women who are the most heavily affected are not the squeaky wheels that speak out and demand that there be change,” she adds.
“The work that’s been done by the Nail Technicians’ Network is important in helping them to find their voice and to get comfortable with speaking out about what is clearly a problem.”
“Some nail technicians can get a lot of money, but some have a horrible life in nail salons.” MINH-TRANG NGUYEN COMMUNITY LEGAL WORKER AT CHINESE & SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC