laundry

[rm]

Lately, it's become easiest for me to do my laundry on weekday mornings. At my laundromat this often means that it's hard to get a washer because this is when the laundry that people send in to be done is done.

What I only realized today, however, is that this is not laundry from the neighborhood. What happens is that people drop off their laundry to be done at pricer laundromats on the UES and then these laundromats then farm the work out to my laundromat at cheaper rates and it gets done by hand at god knows what awful wages before it's carted back downtown.

Today I had to shove aside a bag bound for Gracie Mansion.

Comments

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

That is just MADE of awful...wow.

[rm.livejournal.com]

If you saw the place -- no AC, and the frenzy! I really, really wonder about the wages. I mean, this is one of those NYC economy things -- whether it's white, black, or grey, but still. 19th century city, this.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

Fuckin' A! It doesn't help at all that I'm reading "The White City" by Erik Larson, and I keep thinking of Jurgis from "The Jungle" in his meatpacking factory...my fantasy mind is already set for that 19th century connection...!

unholy congruence

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I just took a break from reading Henslowe's diary and hopped on LJ.

I was reading the diary, in order to see if I could find any notation for laundering fees etc (because how did they get fake blood out of costumes for a play like Titus Andronicus).

Then I saw this.

That is so alarming, I just...the things that go on underneath the world are so...gah.

Re: unholy congruence

[rm.livejournal.com]

Also, you've never been in my laundromat -- no air conditioning, just these twenty or so men and women each with a gallon jug of water sweating over clothes.

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

Take pictures. Sell them to the post. I doubt it will improve the worker's conditions a whit but at least it should embarrass the mayor, or failing that, at least possibly put a dent in the UES laundromats income when the rich folk discover where their laundry is actually being done.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was seriously, seriously thinking about digging into this a little. I mean, I worked in investigative reporting at the AP. And the story if the workers aren't being paid legal wages gets a lot more interesting.

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

If not you, perhaps try contacting the Villager or the Voice. Its a great angle for a story.

From what I've read that laundromats are run on very very tight margins so I doubt that anyone who's working at a shop like that is making the proscribed $7.15 an hour when labor is the easiest expense you can reasonably expect to cut.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my only hestitation is the degree to which something like this coming to light doesn't get these peopel better wages, it gets the work shifted elsewhere and leaves they folks more broke. Also I wonder to what degree they are illegals.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

*nods* that is definitely a problem. We recently had a local paper do an expose on truly horrid working conditions at a canning plant and all it generated was a raid by the department of immigration.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. This is the sort of story that has significant potential for any remotely liberal newspaper. Sending in a few pictures and a page or so to various newspapers will almost certainly generate sufficient interest for them to send someone out.

[sethg]

OMG! Outsourcing within one city!