FACTS

Common potential hazards and dangers associated with the commercial laundry process at a local establishment, hospital, hotel, or other facility that harm and kill employees include:

• Hazardous Chemicals
• Personal Protective Equipment
• Latex Allergies
• Slips, Trips, & Falls
• Pushing and Lifting Hazards
• Heat Stress
• Fire Hazard
• Noise Exposure
• Sharps Handling

STATS

• According to the National Statistics Annual Business Inquiry, the dry cleaning and laundry industry employs around 39,000 people. This covers everything from independent dry cleaners to industrial laundries and onsite laundering facilities in the health and hospitality sectors.
• According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the majority of laundry accidents are caused by four main factors. Firstly, manual handling, which accounts for over a third of all injuries; slips and trips which make up a quarter of injuries; being hit by falling objects and coming into contact with moving machinery. These four causes account for almost 90 per cent of all reported injuries.
• According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, involving employment data of the previous year, there were 6000 Laundry Workers at work in the Chicago, Naperville, and Arlington Heights metropolitan area.
• During the fall 2020, the Laundry Workers Center started surveying workers at the retail laundromat industry across New Jersey. Laundry workers face customer aggression, discrimination, unsafe working conditions, and much more. There is a discrepancy in the amount of labor laundromat workers put in compared to the pay and benefits they actually receive.
• NJ laundromat workers comprise a predominantly female and immigrant workforce. 9 % of respondents to a survey conducted under this study were women, and 87 % were immigrants.