The cleaners are getting taken to the cleaners – and you might be too, soon.
A trade dispute with China has caused the price of those flimsy wire hangers dry cleaners depend on to more than double in recent weeks, and they say it is only a matter of time before they have to pass on the added cost to customers.
Chinese manufacturers were charging a price so far below fair market value that all but one American factory was put out of business, officials said. But a steep federal tariff imposed last month to level the playing field is now leaving cleaners hanging out to dry.
“It costs 10 cents per hanger and just two weeks ago it was four cents,” said Peter Kim, manager of Community French Clean ers, on Lexington Avenue at 28th Street. “Every body is desperate right now. If I knew before, I would have bought 100 boxes.”
Just as the rising price of wheat has made bagels and pizza more expensive, the extra $500 a month the hangers are costing the average cleaner will eventually have to be picked up by the customers, said Nora Nea lis, executive director of the National Cleaners Association.
“Right now, many of the cleaners are eat ing the costs, but at some point we may need to put out a poster explaining [to customers] why they’re being forced to raise their prices,” she said.
The tariff is the result of a lawsuit filed by M&B Metal Products, an Alabama company that was among the last domestic manufacturers.
The Department of Commerce found that Chinese companies were charging one-third of the fair market value for the hangers, and as a result, Chinese imports increased from 773 million hangers in 2004 to nearly 3 billion last year.
“Price discrimination hurts American manufacturers by undermining their competitiveness in the global marketplace,” said Assistant Commerce Secretary David Spooner.
But dry cleaners complain that with only one domestic manufacturer remaining, the tariff will only hurt them and their customers, Nealis said.
Alternatives to the wire hangers, or campaigns to recycle them, have so far proved ineffective, she said.
Dry cleaning is a bit of a discretionary purchase, and even a nickel or dime extra on the price of a shirt or slacks will turn some customers away, cleaners say.
“My customers, needless to say, don’t want to pay a lot more and I’m trying to do the right thing,” said Ken Kinzer, owner of Bridgestone Cleaners in DUMBO. “It’s simple economics – if the price of flour goes up 200 percent, a slice of pizza will be more expensive.”