Proposal for Reasonable Resolution of Laundry Disputes

The Tianjin Laundry and Dyeing Association issued the "Suggestions on How Tianjin Laundry Enterprises Can Reasonably Resolve Laundry Disputes to Promote Social Harmony." The suggestions summarize the hot issues and causes of complaints in Tianjin in 2009; and provide consumers with practical advice on laundry choices.

The Tianjin Laundry Industry Association conducted a comprehensive statistical analysis of laundry complaints in 2009, deeply analyzing the hot issues of complaints. This aims to regulate the city's laundry market, improve workers' technical skills, ensure laundry service quality, reduce laundry disputes, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the laundry industry.
1. Complaint hotspots: From the laundry complaint statistics, the clothing types with higher complaint rates this year are suits and casual wear at 27%; cold-proof clothing (down jackets) at 25%; fur products at 15%; silk garments at 11%; and cashmere clothing at 7%.
2. The main complaint contents are: color fading, color transfer, color matching issues, deformation, graying, yellowing, fabric damage, uneven dyeing, stiffness, and uncleanliness.
3. Main causes of complaints:
1. There are about 40,000 employees in the city's laundry industry, with generally low technical levels, making it difficult to guarantee laundry quality. Professional technicians holding national vocational qualification certificates account for 14.28% of the total, including senior technicians at 0.17%; technicians at 0.06%; senior laundry workers at 1.2%; intermediate at 8.68%; and junior at 4.17%. It is clear that a large number of untrained and uncertified personnel working on the front line inevitably cause frequent laundry quality disputes and continuous complaints.
2. Some laundry enterprises do not strictly follow operating procedures, which inevitably affects laundry quality. Especially during peak seasons, rough washing, simple operations, and just getting by with customers often occur.
3. Some laundries, in order to compete for business, lower charges and use water washing disguised as dry cleaning.
4. Serious unlicensed operations cause frequent laundry disputes. There are more than 6,000 laundry enterprises in the city. Among them, 60% have business licenses, and 40% operate without licenses. These unlicensed operators lack technical strength and advanced equipment, causing some consumers to suffer economic losses due to seeking cheaper services.
5. The color fastness of clothing fabrics is not high, easily causing color fading, color transfer, and color matching issues after washing. For example, some pure cotton casual clothes have poor color fastness, rubbing fastness, and sunlight resistance, making them prone to color fading, color transfer, and color matching during washing (including home washing). Machine washing (including household washing machines) easily causes scratches. Especially when clothes are stained with oil, soy sauce, red wine, coffee, cola, tomato juice, and other pigments, it is difficult to treat. General detergents are hard to remove these stains; professional stain removers may cause local discoloration and lightening of the base color. Some cotton fabrics undergo chemical changes during washing, causing color changes (e.g., camel color turning gray). Some pure wool garments have decorations made of plastic pearls and pearl sticks on the fabric, or a plastic coating on buttons, which melt and stain clothes after dry cleaning. Some beads have colorful coatings that fall off after washing, sticking to light-colored clothes and causing color matching issues that are hard to remove. Water washing can also cause deformation and shrinkage, damaging the clothes.
6. Misleading clothing labels cause incorrect washing. Dry cleaning and water washing depend on the fabric and composition of the garment. Water washing uses water and detergent. Dry cleaning uses solvents like perchloroethylene or petroleum dry cleaning agents, completed through mechanical force, temperature, and time procedures. Incorrect washing labels cause laundry quality disputes and damage many clothes.
7. Random fabric combinations (several fabrics in one garment) make washing impossible. For example, some pure wool garments have leather on shoulders, elbows, and collars, and synthetic fabric trims, making washing impossible. Some wool and blended fabric garments have artificial leather trims on collars, cuffs, pockets, and seams, which accelerate aging, brittleness, and cracking when exposed to perchloroethylene dry cleaning agents.
8. Some high-end garments use new fabrics treated with an ultra-thin coating, which become hard, brittle, and blistered after dry cleaning. Mechanical water washing (including household washing machines) also causes brittleness and blistering. Even hand washing can cause blistering.
9. Down jackets should be water washed rather than dry cleaned because their fabric is suitable for water washing. Dry cleaning with perchloroethylene causes loss of down fiber oils, damaging the garment's insulation layer.
10. Some linens and curtains are produced without considering shrinkage rates or stretching and shaping, only focusing on length. After washing in laundry shops (or at home), shrinkage rates exceed 10% to 20%. Secondary washing may still cause shrinkage, unknown to consumers, causing laundry shops to be blamed. Some curtain hems with long fringes easily knot and shed after washing, focusing on appearance over practicality. Some cotton garments shrink in length but not width; some warp threads do not shrink while weft threads do.
11. Counterfeit and inferior clothing is also a source of laundry disputes. Fake brand-name clothes on the market are priced 10 to several tens of times higher than domestic products of the same grade. These poor-quality, high-priced clothes often cause laundry quality disputes when sent to laundry shops.
12. Normal wear and aging of clothing during use, such as burns from cigarette butts, scratches from objects, snags, runs, and damage caused by improper storage like moth damage, bicycle chain bites, corrosion from car batteries on clothes, corrosion from cleaning liquids and alkaline water used in cooking and cleaning, causing color loss that is hard to detect before washing. Also, damage from cosmetics and hair dye that are not easily noticed before washing. Additionally, normal wear, falls, aging, prolonged sun exposure causing light damage and fading. These are all hidden issues before washing that only become apparent after washing, and it is difficult for laundries to identify these pre-existing defects when receiving items, which is the root cause of laundry disputes.
IV. Several misconceptions consumers have about sending clothes for laundry.
First, all problems with laundered clothes are the laundry's responsibility. Laundry quality is affected by many factors such as textile fabric, garment manufacturing, and actual wear. Many hidden defects only appear after washing, and problems caused by misleading washing labels also surface during washing and ironing. It is unfair to blame the laundry entirely; unreasonable compensation causes great distress to operators.
Second, laundered clothes should be returned in the same condition as when newly purchased. Clothes may fade slightly and look a bit older after each wash, which is a natural phenomenon and cannot be exactly the same as new.
Third, all stains can be removed. In fact, some stubborn stains cannot be removed, especially if they have been treated unsuccessfully at home before being taken to the laundry, making them harder to remove. It is normal that some stains cannot be removed, but efforts should be made to remove them without causing new damage due to improper stain removal.
Fourth, laundries should clean all clothes well. Some even blame laundries saying, "If you can't clean well, why open a laundry?" This is inappropriate. Laundry is like medical treatment; sometimes it can cure, sometimes not. There are differences in technicians' skills, but more importantly, it depends on the condition of the clothes. Laundries should responsibly inform customers about washing methods and expected results when accepting clothes, and politely refuse if they cannot meet customer expectations.
Fifth, dry cleaning is better than wet cleaning. Some customers often request "dry cleaning" or complain, "Why not dry clean for me?" Actually, dry cleaning and wet cleaning are two different methods using different media based on fiber and fabric characteristics, and dry cleaning is not necessarily better. Some fabrics (like artificial leather) cannot be dry cleaned. Experienced and skilled staff will carefully identify fabric materials and washing labels to choose the appropriate cleaning method.
Sixth, petroleum dry cleaning is more environmentally friendly than perchloroethylene dry cleaning. This is not comprehensive. Currently, the main dry cleaning solvents in the market are perchloroethylene and petroleum, each with different functions and characteristics. The choice depends on the garment's texture. There is basically no question of which is more environmentally friendly. Using fifth-generation fully enclosed, secondary recovery dry cleaning machines meets environmental and health requirements. Using open dry cleaning equipment is not environmentally friendly and cannot be considered green laundry.
Seventh, laundry is very simple, anyone can do it. This is a misunderstanding by some laundry business owners or small individual shops. Some people with some capital think opening a laundry is simple and low risk. Some family-run shops buy a washing machine and ironing table and start a laundry, thinking "laundry is simple, anyone can do it." No education, no training, and no knowledge are needed. This is very one-sided.
The above misconceptions mainly arise from insufficient communication between operators and consumers. Consumers lack necessary channels to understand laundry enterprises, and operators have no way to communicate with consumers. This causes the special nature, characteristics, functions, and methods of this emerging yet traditional industry to be unrecognized by society, leading to consumer misunderstandings. Over time, disputes related to these misunderstandings have become prominent, causing tension and mutual distrust between some operators and consumers. Consumers are often overly critical due to lack of trust in laundry services; operators feel "laundry is difficult" and often feel wronged and seek peace; relevant departments like industry and commerce and consumer associations find it hard to identify laundry quality issues and responsibilities, making disputes difficult to resolve. This may affect the healthy and orderly development of the laundry industry and is not conducive to building social harmony between laundry service providers and consumers.
V. How consumers should choose a laundry when washing clothes.
1. Laundry complaint statistics show that member enterprises of the Tianjin Laundry Industry Association account for 6.13% of complaints, while non-member enterprises account for 93.87%. This fully proves that member enterprises have strong technical capabilities and guaranteed laundry quality. Therefore, valuable clothes should be sent to association member enterprises for cleaning.
2. Send clothes to laundries with a displayed business license to avoid damage to your clothes.
3. Laundry complaint statistics show that enterprises implementing the "Tianjin Laundry Service Contract Text" have a complaint rate of 3.7%, while those not uniformly implementing the contract have 96.30%. Therefore, when choosing a laundry, select those that use the "Contract Text." The front of the contract is the Tianjin Laundry Service Receipt (Clothing Collection Voucher); the back is the "Tianjin Laundry Service Agreement." The contract clearly defines the rights and obligations of operators and consumers, allowing consumers to understand the service clearly and protect their legal rights.
VI. Two Suggestions: First, it is recommended that the relevant municipal government departments and the municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce strengthen the enforcement and inspection of the "Tianjin Laundry Service Contract." Through a comprehensive and objective analysis of laundry dispute complaints, facts have proven that the implementation of the "Tianjin Laundry Service Contract Text" has played a positive role in enhancing operators' legal awareness, guiding consumers to consume rationally, and resolving and reducing laundry disputes. Therefore, it is suggested that the Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce strengthen the enforcement and inspection management of the "Contract Text," which will have an immeasurable effect on regulating the laundry industry and promoting the healthy and harmonious development of the laundry industry in our city. Second, according to the national "Laundry Management Measures" and Tianjin's local standard "Laundry Service Quality Standards," laundry enterprises are required to ensure that "employees must undergo technical training and hold certificates to work." It is recommended that the relevant municipal government departments entrust the association with the skills training work. First, increase industry skills training efforts for the public, and conduct skills training for laid-off and unemployed workers, migrant workers, and on-the-job employees according to national policies to ensure certificate-based employment; second, encourage laundry technicians to obtain senior laundry worker, laundry technician, and senior laundry technician titles, and provide corresponding policy subsidies. Improve industry skill levels, ensure laundry service quality, reduce laundry disputes, meet consumer laundry service needs, and promote social harmony. The Tianjin Laundry Industry Association conducted a comprehensive statistical analysis of laundry complaints in 2009 and deeply analyzed the complaint hotspots to regulate the city's laundry market, improve employee technical skills, ensure laundry service quality, reduce laundry disputes, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the laundry industry.
 
2009 Laundry Dispute Complaint Statistics Table.doc