Six nail salon workers of Chinese descent protested last week in front of the Carle Place shop where they work to bring attention to a federal lawsuit they filed in Central Islip last month against the owners, claiming labor law violations and discrimination.
The workers allege that the owners of Babi nail salon, who also own another salon in Glen Head that is named in the lawsuit, failed to pay them minimum wage—sometimes not paying them at all—verbally disparaged Chinese ancestry and physically abused the workers by kicking their chairs, pinching them or clawing their arms and backs. The workers say they were paid about $35 per day, worked six days per week more than 10 hours per day with no overtime.
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“We just weren’t able to continue to work there anymore under those conditions,” Bai Song Li, one of the plaintiffs who goes by Peter, said through an interpreter. A Flushing resident who supports his family back in China, Peter said he was reluctant to quit because he felt a sense of camaraderie with the fellow coworkers and thought work conditions were similar elsewhere.
“As more and more people come out, workers are seeing that changing conditions is possible,” said Wendy Cheung, an organizer with Justice Will Be Served, a group that is aiming to stop workplace exploitation in the nail salon, food and hospitality industries.
The owners, who are Korean, made derogatory remarks about the Chinese, refused to let them speak Chinese and forbid the workers from reading Chinese newspapers, according to the lawsuit. They also were not given a designated break period and were not allowed to sit, the workers claim.
In addition, the workers were forced to pay for their own gloves to clean towels after a washing machine broke and weren’t allowed to wear masks, according to the lawsuit. The bleach used to clean the towels caused the workers hands to bleed and the fumes used in nail salons requires workers to wear facemasks, workers said.
The owners also turned off the heat to save money, the workers claimed. “During the winter, the bosses don’t even turn on the heat but still force us to wear short sleeves even though it’s very cold, which caused us to get sick all the time,” Peter said.
Since the lawsuit was filed on Dec. 23, the workers say they were retaliated against by the owners, who tried to get them to sign a document saying that they are complying with labor laws, but when the workers refused, they were withheld pay, the labor organizers said.
The owners, Kui Soon Cho and In Bae Kim, could not be reached for comment and it was unclear if they had hired an attorney.
