Nail Salon Worker Organizing
Justice for Nail Salon Workers
New York Times Editorial Board
This is where government must build upon many years of work by grass-roots labor organizations. One example is the New York Healthy Nail Salons Coalition, led by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, and Adhikaar, which means “rights” in Nepali. Adhikaar, based in Queens, has been giving Nepali nail salon workers health and safety training and encouraging the creation of “green” salons using nontoxic products. Read more here.
Nepalese nail salon workers want fair working conditions – and lunch breaks
Village Voice
For the workers of New York City’s 2,000 nail salons, the recent New York Times exposé on salon workers’ lack of labor rights — and the subsequent calls for regulation at the state and city levels — have been game-changers. For Luna Ranjit and Adhikaar, the Nepalese social justice organization she directs, it’s been a long time coming. Read more here.
Nepalese nail salon workers found to suffer low pay, health issues
Al Jazeera America
A survey of 189 Nepali-speaking, New York-based nail salon workers found the majority of them earn a flat fee of between $40 and $70 a day and suffer from health problems that began after they started working at a salon, the community organizing group Adhikaar said this week. Read more here.
Nepal Earthquake & Relief Efforts
Nepalis in New York Improvise a Relief Effort for Earthquake Victims
New York Times
In recent days, strands of the New York-area diaspora began to braid themselves around a campaign to press for a special temporary immigration status sometimes granted to foreigners who are unable to return safely to their home countries because of armed conflict or natural disasters. The special status would protect undocumented Nepalis in the United States from deportation and allow them to remain temporarily and work. Read more here.
New York City’s Nepali community rushes to aid: ‘That’s the power of Nepal’
The Guardian
Many of those Jackson Heights Nepalis work blue-collar jobs. Case workers at Adhikaar, an outreach collective a few blocks from the Sherpa temple, say wage theft and poor working conditions are a common experience for many Nepalese immigrants in New York. Read more here.