Kinja reply list

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Betty SlocombeAnna Merlan
12/21/15 7:30pm
Incrementally better is better than nothing. I hope people are at least willing to admit that there ARE problems in that industry.

I still wish I could find out just how bad it is in the west coast city I live in. I haven’t gotten my nails done since reading that article.
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  MarillenbaumBetty Slocombe
  12/21/15 7:34pm
  I do my nails at home now. Part of that, to be fair, is just that I’m working on my debt repayment and building my savings, but I doubly don’t want to spend money in enterprises that are likely exploiting their employees. So, it’s Manicure Mondays at my place...at least, after I make myself work on my graduate school applications!
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  jinniMarillenbaum
  12/21/15 7:37pm
  This seems wise: additionally, you can use polishes with fewer noxious chemicals. Or is that just me?
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BCDFGAnna Merlan
12/21/15 8:24pm
Reason is a magazine that accepted funding from the tobacco industry to do hit pieces on consumer advocates. NYRB is, of course, a vanity press that will accept any article that a sufficiently obsessive-compulsive writer will submit. Neither of those are really worth mentioning in opposition to the original expose.

Meanwhile, what I think is lost here is that an industry that is run by a cartel is finally forced to concede to the reality that it’s hoarded people’s livelihoods as its own profit and may have to pay.

If and when the owners finally get their wage bonding done, it will be anyone’s guess whether the owners will let the law handle the cases brought against them. So many of the workers involved in working for the salon industry are undocumented. There are well-documented crime syndicates (the “snakeheads” who employ corrupt Chinese officials) that do placement for these jobs. Given that you can technically sue a foreigner for corruption that impacts the U.S., this could well provoke an international incident.
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jinniAnna Merlan
12/21/15 7:33pm
Rarely have I gotten manicures/pedicures for this very reason. The employees in the nail salons where I live look depressed, unhealthy (very pale, and often hair loss: I know correlation is not causation, but I have seen it enough to incur some wariness), and exhausted. The fumes can seem overwhelming to me, and I might have been in the salon, twenty minutes maximum. These women are working long shifts, every day.

I understand that, perhaps, staying away is no solution, as it results in fewer or lower wages. But I feel unable to patronise these stores. Many of my friends jubilantly tell me of their pampering for the day: I got my nails done! And yet the cognitive dissonance feels wrenching to me. Not judging anyone for their choices; but the environment of many of these small shops seems desolate and unnerving.
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sukatraAnna Merlan
12/22/15 12:58am
“She also said that when asked, her employees denied telling Nir they were paid $35. “I trust my employees,” says Gurung, who is not the first source to challenge her portrayal in the story.”

You think they weren’t intimidated by your asking the question? Of course they denied it.

She makes me want to vomit.
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  clickSuckasukatra
  12/22/15 9:22am
  $35/day...whatever “day” means...makes me want to vomit.
  
  That’s about $1,000 per month if you take no days off. One can only survive, on that amount, if they are as sheisty, predatory, and depraved as Sona Gurung. She’s the kind of person that works their way up and becomes politically influential, if “only” in local politics.
  
  How can one, properly, take care of the necessities of life with this offensively meager amount? In New York City?
  
  Haven’t read the article, but—One might argue: “What about tips?” Has that person considered what happens after the doors close? Cameras in these places aren’t necessarily to prevent customers from “defrauding” the owner.
  
  This really makes me angry.
  
  /rant
  
  ugh
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Fareed ZakariaAnna Merlan
12/21/15 10:24pm
Sarah Maslin Nir has a serious accuracy problem. This is the NYT correction that was needed for her simple writeup, from yesterday, about the Mast Brothers Chocolategate:

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the name of the series written by the blogger Scott Craig about Mast Brothers. It was called “What Lies Behind the Beards,’’ not “What Lies Beyond the Beards.” The article also misspelled, in some copies, the surname of the former pharmaceuticals company executive who is charged with securities fraud and to whom some have drawn comparisons on social media. He is Martin Shkreli, not Shrekli. The article also misstated the number of chocolate bars made at Mast Brothers’ North Third Street Shop in Williamsburg. It is 1,500 bars a day, not a year. It also referred imprecisely to the location of the main Mast Brothers factory. While it is adjacent to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, it is not in it.

“But hey! Those are extremely minor mistakes!” you might say. And they are! But four separate mistakes in a simple story is extremely rare for a NYT story. It shows sloppiness with facts.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/nyr...)
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  efcdonsFareed Zakaria
  12/21/15 11:40pm
  Is this the Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s flagship foreign affairs show? Why are you here casting aspersions about an NYT reporter?
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  Fareed Zakariaefcdons
  12/22/15 3:47am
  When the nail salon story broke we covered it on GPS and invited her on the show. She didn’t do it — likely hiding something.
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