It’s been two decades since immigrant worker Maria Isabel Coyotecatl worked at Envy Nails, a chain of 25 beauty parlors across the five boroughs, but the four months she worked there as a nail technician still disturb her to this day.
“I had no lunch break, and I worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, and every day I suffered from headaches and stomach issues because everything we ate there tasted like acrylic since we ate at our stations and had no fridge,” she said. “There were more than 20 nail stations to provide nail services, no ventilation, and at that time, acrylic was a popular nail service offered to clients.”
Although Coyotecatl hasn’t worked at Envy Nails in over two decades, things haven’t changed much at the popular salon, according to a new report by the National Conference on Worker Safety and Health (National COSH).
Every year in commemoration of Workers’ Memorial Week, National COSH releases its annual “Dirty Dozen” report, a list of the twelve most egregious employers who steal wages and violate workers’ right to a safe and healthy workplace.
Among the dozen worst employers on the list, Envy Nails ranked sixth.
As part of their report, researchers conducted workplace surveys, where workers said Envy Nails subjected employees to unsanitary working conditions, failed to provide them with personal protective equipment, and allegedly forced employees to serve clients with contagious conditions.
Envy Nails also allegedly has a practice of dismissing employees without pay and charging them for using equipment necessary for their jobs, in addition to requiring them to work without breaks, the report states.
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“At Envy Nails, workers are exposed to toxic chemicals every single day, often without adequate ventilation, protection, or even basic health safeguards,” Yanelia Ramirez, a former worker at Envy Nails, said in a statement. “Many are immigrant women doing long hours for low pay, suffering in silence out of fear of retaliation.”
Ramirez, who worked at Envy Nails from 2009 until 2025, claims she was fired without explanation. Coyotecatl also alleges that management unfairly fired her after she complained to her boss about not being paid for her work.
Envy Nails’ long history of workplace abuse includes a class action lawsuit filed in 2013, accusing the company of paying its mostly immigrant women employees as little as $5 a day. Between 2014 and 2019, a salon owned by Envy Nails’ owners failed to pay sales tax and was charged with grand larceny and forced to pay the state $275,000. In nine separate wage theft cases filed with the New York Department of Labor in 2014, the agency recovered a total of $156,693 for 34 Envy Nails employees.
In 2023, Attorney General Letitia James recovered $300,000 in unpaid wages from Envy Nails. James’ office found that between 2015 and 2021, the company failed to pay minimum wage to over 100 current and former employees, many of whom were immigrant workers.
“Envy Nails did not pay minimum wage, cheating more than 100 salon workers out of the livelihoods they had rightfully earned,” said Attorney General James in a 2023 statement. “We are holding them accountable for their crimes, and New Yorkers can rest assured that we will always fight for workers’ rights.”
Envy Nails owner Anh Diep Do could not be reached for comment by press time.
Others on the Dirty Dozen list include corporate giant McDonald’s, 99 Cost Bargain, and the private prison company GEO Group.
The report found that in 2023, 5,283 workers died on the job across the United States, amounting to a death every 99 minutes. Latino workers were killed on the job at a higher rate than any other ethnic group, at 4.4 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers, higher than the national average of 3.5. Of the 1,250 Latino workers who died on the job, 839 were immigrants.
Jessica E. Martinez, executive director of National COSH, noted that “too many” workers had become sick, sustained lifelong injuries, or died as a result of preventable workplace incidents.
“The employers we’re highlighting in this year’s Dirty Dozen list have ignored known risks and failed to implement basic safety measures, putting profit over people,” Martinez said in a statement. “We must hold them accountable.”
