BEHIND THE SCENES
IN A
HOTEL
PUBLISHED—FEBRUARY, 1922
BY
The Consumers’ League of New York
289 FOURTH AVENUE
NEW YORK CITY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BEHIND THE SCENES IN A HOTEL
[Sidenote: Growth of the hotel industry]
The modern hotel industry, claimed by the 35th Convention of the New
York Hotel Association to be the fifth largest industry in the United
States, is of comparatively recent growth. It is true that from the
earliest times there have been inns and small hostels for the
accommodation of the wayfarer. But this accommodation was the simple
provision of board and lodging. The host and his family ran the house
much as the modern boarding and rooming house is run. Until the late
nineteenth century these houses, small and few in number, were usually
at stage-coach changes along the road. With the great increase in
travel, stimulated by the growth of steam railroads, hotels sprang up in
great numbers and tended to concentrate in large centers of population.
The invention of the elevator and the use of fireproof materials have
made possible the construction of gigantic modern edifices. In the last
few decades, under these conditions, more and more capital has been
attracted to the industry until today there are 40,000 hotels, large and
small, in the United States.
The individual hotel has developed into a complex institution, often of
colossal size, supplying board and lodging on a most luxurious scale. In
all parts of New York State, particularly in the smaller cities and
towns, the small hotel with the inn tradition, with a simple table
d’hôte service at one rate, still exists. But the tendency in New York
City and in first and second class cities of the State has been toward a
rapid expansion in the size of the individual establishment with an
elaboration of service, and a specialization of hotel types. In the
larger cities of the State, there are hotels with 450 or more rooms; in
New York City there are many hotels with from 1000 to 2000 rooms. The
largest hotel in New York, “the largest hotel in the world,” by its own
advertisement, contains 2200 rooms and 2200 baths. In answer to the
special needs of special groups, different types of hotels have sprung
up—the commercial-transient hotel which supplies complete, efficient but
unelaborate service, the apartment house and family hotel with
additional comforts and luxuries for residents of a longer period, the
ultra-fashionable hotel, and the hotel that specializes in banquets,
conventions and other social functions. No distinct classification
holds, for there is usually an overlapping of types.
As the individual hotel has grown, hotel corporations and syndicates
have developed. In New York City the largest, most complete hotels,
almost without exception, are operated by hotel corporations. Two
companies are each managing five of the largest hotels. Another company
manages five hotels, two of which are in first class cities of New York
State and three in other states. One company manages a group of fifteen
smaller family hotels in New York City. Four hotels in four different
up-state cities are managed by still another company. These corporation
managers have united to form the New York State Hotel Men’s Association
and the Hotel Association of New York City for discussion of standards
of operation. This exchange of opinion has resulted in the turning of
hotel managers’ thoughts to standards and policies in regard to labor,
though as yet little of a concrete nature has been accomplished.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The labor force in the modern hotel]
The labor force required to furnish service in the modern hotel has
necessarily increased enormously since the day when the host of the
old-time hostel and his family personally cared for the needs of their
guests. The following extract from a hotel manager’s pamphlet on the
running of big hotels gives some idea of the problems of labor
management: “The operation of a single metropolitan hotel is too complex
an undertaking to be likened to a gigantic piece of housekeeping. When
it comes to running a group of six of the largest hotels in the world
... the performance becomes of colossal size. The idea of employing 510
men just to cook food and another 925 just to wait on table, finding
need at the same time to call in an average of 3000 waiters a month to
help out on banquets, requiring 380 chambermaids to make beds and so on,
must strike one pretty much as indicative of doing business on a
wholesale scale.”
Hotel managers, however, have been too prone to treat their business as
housekeeping on a big scale. The transition from the small home industry
with a few paying guests has been too rapid for adjustment to large
scale method and standards. The attention of the hotel management, so
far, has been directed toward standards of service to the public. It has
only begun to think of standardization of conditions of employment for
workers. It is perhaps the most backward and unregulated of industries
from the point of view of wages, hours and living conditions, and
comparable only with domestic service. It is one of the few industries
which continues to house its employees as a part of the wage payment. It
is one of the few industries in which tipping or the giving of
gratuities to workers by the public persists.
There are inherent in the business certain definite obstacles to
standardization of labor conditions. The most serious of these is that
it is an almost continuous industry where work is carried on for
eighteen of the twenty-four hours with peaks of greater volume
throughout the day. The hotel managers, however, have not as yet put
their best effort into solving this problem and to working out
standardized conditions of employment.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The reason for the investigation]
Because for many years it has been aware of the long hours and living-in
conditions in hotels, the Consumers’ League of New York undertook a
study of the hotel industry in the summer and fall of 1921 to discover
the hours, wages, working and living conditions for women workers in the
hotels of New York State.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The method used in the investigation]
The material used in the report was obtained by the investigators
through their personal experience in working in typical women’s jobs in
the hotel industry and by applying for work in a number of occupations
in hotels and hotel employment offices. The material is necessarily
incomplete and uneven though supplemented wherever possible by
interviews with workers in the industry, officials and members of labor
unions, employment agencies, etc. The report on wages, hours, and
living-in conditions is a statement of the facts and conditions found in
the hotels covered.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The scope of the investigation]
For the purpose of this investigation a hotel was defined, according to
the American Travel and Hotel Directory, as “any building or structure
of the better class (whose minimum sized bedrooms are at least 50¢ a
night) used or maintained in whole or part for the entertainment of the
traveling public or persons of temporary residence; with sleeping rooms
furnished for hire with or without meals and (in order not to be
confused with lodging or rooming house) maintaining an office or lobby
register.”
The scope of the investigation was necessarily limited because of the
general condition of unemployment in other industries which turned many
women to hotel work. The selection of hotels for the study, therefore,
depended in a large measure upon the chance availability of jobs for the
investigators. An attempt was made, however, to obtain work or apply for
work in hotels as representative of the industry as possible. Hotels
ranging in size from 25 to 2200 rooms were selected. The commercial
hotel, the family apartment type, hotels featuring conventions and
social functions—both transient and residential hotels were included. No
resort or seasonal hotels were chosen.
It was found that the hotel industry centers in cities according to
their size. The cities of New York State were classified according to
population into first class cities of over 175,000; second class cities
of from 50,000 to 175,000; and third class cities of less than 50,000
population. It proved to be far more difficult to secure employment in
second and third class cities than in first class cities. In smaller
centers this was in part due to the greater stability of the labor force
and in the case of industrial cities to the unemployment situation. In
cities of a few controlling industries, which had closed down, the hotel
housekeepers invariably answered an inquiry for work with the statement
that the works had shut down and so they had long waiting lists for all
jobs.
* * * * *
The investigators applied for work in 96 hotels in New York State.
First class 47
cities
Buffalo 12
New York and 25
Brooklyn
Rochester 10
Second class 28
cities
Albany 7
Binghamton 3
Schenectady 4
Syracuse 8
Utica 6
Third class 21
cities
Elmira 2
Hudson 2
Ithaca 2
Kingston 2
Newburgh 3
Troy 4
Oswego 2
Poughkeepsie 4
___
Total 96
Work was secured in sixteen hotels, fourteen of which were in first
class cities, one in Rochester, two in Buffalo, and eleven in New York
and Brooklyn. One job was secured in Syracuse, a second class city, and
one in Troy, a city of the third class.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Occupations Covered]
It is impossible to give the exact percentage of women to men employed
in hotels. A recent survey has been made, however, by the United States
Bureau of Labor Statistics of hotels and restaurants in 26 cities. This
report shows that 40% of the employees in hotels and restaurants are
women.[1] The percentage for hotels alone would undoubtedly be larger
because men are usually employed as waiters in the larger restaurants
and in restaurants there is no large group of women chambermaids as in
hotels.
Footnote 1:
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. Wages of Hotel and
Restaurant Employees. 1919. (Advance Release 486, Sept. 31, 1921.)
Of the women in hotels, 56% are in the housekeeping department; 23% in
the kitchen, dining room and pantry departments; and 20% in
miscellaneous departments.[2] The miscellaneous departments comprise
office employees, laundry workers, elevator, telephone and telegraph
operators, seamstresses, wrap checkers and newsstand salesgirls. They
have been excluded from this study on the ground that they are not
typical of the hotel industry and may be studied under their respective
occupations. Since newsstands and checking rooms are usually
concessions, the investigators felt they could not be adequately dealt
with but should be separately investigated.
More than half of the women workers in hotels are employed in the
housekeeping department. 40.2% of the women in hotels are chambermaids,
10% cleaners or bathmaids, 2% linen room girls and 3.8% housekeepers.[2]
Housekeepers have been excluded from this study because of the small
percentage and the difficulty in securing information. The study of the
housekeeping department, therefore, is confined to chambermaids,
cleaners, bathmaids and linen room workers. The investigators worked in
14 jobs in the housekeeping department as chambermaid, bathmaid and
linen room worker.
Footnote 2:
Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia. Wages of Women in
Hotels and Restaurants. 1919. P. 10.
In the kitchen, cooks and assistant cooks are excluded on the ground of
number. The information in the kitchen, dining room and pantry
departments is, therefore, confined to waitresses and pantry workers.
Two jobs were obtained in the kitchen as pantry worker. No work could be
obtained as a waitress. All information regarding waitresses was secured
from interviews with workers.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Labor Recruiting]
During the war the hotels of New York City found that advertisements,
private fee-charging employment agencies and bulletins posted at the
employees’ entrance, were bringing in inadequate returns. The New York
City Hotel Men’s Association, therefore, opened its own free employment
bureau, which served as a clearing house for all jobs open in hotels
belonging to the Association in New York City. One hotel company opened
its own employment bureau to recruit workers for the five hotels under
its management. This proved to be a temporary expedient only, to be used
at a time when the hotels were in need of workers. When unemployment,
due to the industrial depression, grew, the free employment bureaus were
discontinued. This was at a time when the workers most needed them. The
basis for the closing of the employment bureaus was voiced by one
employment manager, “We don’t need to do that now; we have a long line
at the door every day for every job.”
* * * * *
At present there is a return to the use of the advertisement and private
employment agency. The old, unintelligent method of hiring the first
worker in line after a casual interview, whether or not more suitable
candidates may be available, is again the practice. In all but five of
the hotels in which work was applied for the timekeeper and the head of
the department interviewed the worker. It is true that some of the
larger hotels in New York City under the control of big hotel
corporations have developed employment departments. The employment
managers have no labor policy, however. They are little more than
clerks. They receive calls from the heads of departments and refer
workers to them as they apply. No central record is kept. No job
specifications have been worked out and no record is kept of the workers
who leave. Even where there are employment managers the actual hiring is
done by the heads of departments whose attitude is only too often,
“These girls won’t stay long anyway, so it doesn’t much matter who is
hired.”
* * * * *
The following example illustrates how unintelligently an interview can
be carried on by a housekeeper who was apparently an excellent manager
of her department in other respects. The bad psychology and entire lack
of employment technique in the interview is obvious. The interview took
place in a first class hotel of a first class city in New York State.
The girl waited for three-quarters of an hour outside the linen room.
Finally, the housekeeper, a robust, emphatic person, came up the stairs.
The girl took the initiative:
“Are you the housekeeper?”
“Yes,” in a forbidding tone.
“Do you need any chambermaids?” She gave the girl an appraising
look. She seemed to suspend judgment temporarily.
“Why, yes,” she replied ungraciously, “I do need a steady girl.
Are you a floater?”
“No, I’m not a floater,” was the quick reply suggested to the
girl. The housekeeper looked skeptical, but went on.
“Where’ve you worked?”
“—— in Albany.”
“Oh,” and she registered faint satisfaction, “that’s the same
management as this hotel,” then, hardening again, “and did you
get tired of that?”
“Oh, no,” replied the candidate, quick to get her cue, “I liked
it. I had to leave when we moved away from there.” The
housekeeper was mollified.
“You live here now?”
“Yes, I’m goin’ to. I ain’t got any people. I come from Lake
George,” showing she was a floater after all.
“You sure you ain’t a floater and you’ll come Sundays, every
Sunday and take your night watches?” suggesting to the girl that
she will expect her to be skipping Sunday and watches. “Well,
wages is $10.50 a week, live out, hours 8-3 with night watch
every 20th night from 6 to 11 P.M. When can you start?”
“Tomorrow.”
“All right, now don’t go back on me, will you?” implying that
the girls usually do.
Then, as an afterthought, “What’s your name?”
“Minnie ——, ma’am.”
“All right, Minnie, 8 o’clock tomorrow. Now don’t you go back on
me, mind!”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Getting a job in a hotel]
Now that the hotels’ employment agency is no longer open, a girl setting
out to look for a job in a New York hotel first looks over the “Help
Wanted” column in the New York World. There she may find advertisements
such as these:
Wanted:
Chambermaid, with hotel experience, call before 10 A.M. Hotel ——;
Live in.
Wanted:
Waitress, young girl, call before 10 A.M. Hotel ——.
Details are seldom given regarding wages or hours. If she is experienced
she has a notion as to which are “good houses” so she rates the hotels
in her mind and starts out early Monday morning to apply to them for a
job.
Failing to find advertisements in the paper—and she does fail very
often, for the labor supply in hotels is abundant—she makes the rounds
of hotels, tipped off by a friend as to the best places to work. Or she
joins the throng which files in and out of the hotel agencies on Sixth
Avenue. The agency is usually on the second or third floor of a building
with its sign in the doorway on the street floor. Under the sign are
daily bulletin boards where the agency posts the “Jobs Open Today.” On
the one side are jobs for men, on the other jobs for women. The girl
stops to pour over these with a motley crew of women, young and old,
trim and slattern, of all nationalities.
“Pantry $40 a Live in
girl month
Waitress $30 a Live in
month
Chambermaid $25 a Live in,”
month
she reads. If she finds anything to interest her, she ascends the
several flights of dark stairs leading to the agency offices. She finds
the employment agency divided into two parts, the men’s department and
the women’s department. Behind a railing at one end is the interviewer
of women, seated at a desk, talking to applicants one by one. In front
of the railing in groups sit the candidates for jobs. There are neat
waitresses, pretty Irish chambermaids, intelligent, mature pantry women,
buxom Italian cooks, fat little bathmaids and cleaners, who are
beginning to despair of getting a job anywhere. Conversation is animated
and loud, often in brogue and broken English. It concerns disputes
between housekeepers and maids, the awful hours and food in some hotels,
the Irish question, prohibition, and how foreigners are taking girls’
jobs.
Finally the interviewer turns and says, “Come on in. What are you
looking for?” and she tells the candidate what jobs she has open and
that she must obligate herself to pay the agency 10 per cent of her
first month’s salary if she gets a job through it. Then the girl gets a
card from the interviewer directing her to a job. The employment office
is not careful to conserve the worker’s time or money. It is a
commercial institution bent on profit. It sends her out to a hotel which
wanted a chambermaid yesterday or early in the morning, without first
telephoning to find out if the job is still open. It even “books” her
for a job out-of-town with the most meager information regarding
conditions in the hotel, although the worker is required to sign a
contract to stay for a definite period of time. So she often finds
herself, after visiting the agency, with a day lost, carfare lost and
nothing gained, or a job secured which she finds it is impossible to
keep because of some unknown disadvantages.
The hotel worker reflects, therefore, before going on a job recommended
by the agency, deterred also by the 10 per cent fee. She will look
around for herself and return here as a last resort. So she goes the
round of the individual hotels again. When she reaches a hotel she walks
to the rear hunting the employees’ entrance. It is not hard to
distinguish. It is indicated by an opening in the sidewalk and a steeply
descending flight of iron steps, often circular, leading to the basement
or second basement. These are often slippery and dark. They lead into an
ill-lighted passage at the bottom, littered with storeroom supplies, old
bottles, casks, bags of potatoes, etc. She has not made much progress
before she is hailed by the timekeeper from his cage behind the time
clock near the door.
“Hey, what do you want,” he calls, “a job?” Sometimes he is scarcely so
civil. She states her errand; she wants a job as a chambermaid, a
waitress or a pantry girl, as the case may be. Sometimes she meets
absolute discouragement from the timekeeper. Sometimes he is more
good-natured and directs her to the housekeeper or the steward and shows
her the way to the elevator. So she continues along the passage, dodging
puddles and dripping pipes.
If she is a chambermaid, she goes to the housekeeper’s office or the
linen room. There she sits on a bench outside the door waiting audience
along with other applying bathmaids and cleaners,—talking again about
how awful it is to work in a hotel. When she does see the housekeeper,
she is greeted with a roughly appraising look.
“Hotel experience?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where?” and “how long?”
But it is her appearance which counts, not her experience. If the
candidate is young and nice looking, undeformed, and there is a job
open, she will get it. If she is older and getting fat, all the
experience in the world will do her no good. Her looks demote her to the
bathmaid class and she will find it hard to get a job as that. So she is
casual in giving her experience and she is casually hired. She doesn’t
learn much about the wages and hours or about the food and the room she
is to have if she is to live in.
The girl decides to try it out for herself to see if it is “a good house
for tips, how much you can pick up from the floor, what the watches are,
how hard they work you, and what the grub and rooms are like.” If she
doesn’t make out she’ll leave—it doesn’t much matter. She would do
something else if she got half a chance—but she’ll stick to this awhile
anyway.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Learning the ways of the hotel]
During the first few days in the hotel, she is shoved about and utterly
lost. Perhaps no one even asks her name for several days. She doesn’t
know where her “station” or her “floor” is and how much territory it
covers. She doesn’t know where the time clock is, where to get her meal
ticket, where meals are served, where the toilets and dressing rooms
are, where to get supplies and bed linen. She fumbles about “lost like”
until she learns for herself. Sometimes she grows discouraged and leaves
in the first few days. Sometimes she finds a friend who shows her
around, takes her down to lunch, tells her what the rules are, and
introduces her to her friends.
There were, of course, a few exceptions. In several cases rules and
regulations were posted in linen closets and pantries and occasionally
the housekeeper would put a new worker in charge of another girl to
learn the rules. All hotels required the new worker to sign a contract
stating that she would obey the rules of the establishment and would
allow her baggage to be searched. The contracts seemed meaningless in
that in most cases the workers had no way of knowing what the rules and
regulations of the hotel were.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The training of new employees]
As for learning her job, “You’re experienced, aren’t you? Well, then,
you know what to do,” and the housekeeper dismisses all responsibility.
The idea that any woman knows how to do chamber work or cleaning is
prevalent in the housekeeping department. The girl is left to work
alone, then scolded for her mistakes or even discharged without notice.
One worker was turned out at 4 o’clock in the afternoon with no money
and another girl put in her bed that night because the housekeeper
“didn’t like the way she swept.” In a few exceptional cases the
housekeeper taught the new girls by the “you watch me” method.
The failure of hotels to train their employees was pointed out by the
United States Federal Board of Vocational Education which had been
requested by the American Hotel Association to make an investigation of
the possibilities for vocational training in the industry. The report
points out that the hotel industry has developed so fast from a home
industry that managers have not perfected their organization. Department
heads have not been instructed that one of their functions is the
training of new workers. The report stresses the fact that training must
be based on a clear definition of jobs and that jobs have not yet been
analyzed by the management. “As hotel men pay more attention to training
and promotion of deserving employees, there will be greater inducement
to capable young people to enter the business. Such opportunities for
training and promotion will also lessen the turnover of labor and
consequently lessen the cost of operation.”[3] In New York State there
seems little indication that hotels have profited by this report.
Footnote 3:
L. S. Hawkins, representing the Federal Board of Vocational Education.
Vocational Education in the Hotel Business, A Report to the American
Hotel Association of the United States and Canada. P. 10.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Transfers and Promotion]
There was no such thing as a transfer or promotion policy in hotels
where work was obtained. The nearest approach to it was found in one
hotel where in the housekeeping department women were sometimes taken on
as bathmaids at $25 a month and later became chambermaids at $28 a
month. There their advancement ceased. Some hotels have rules that no
chambermaids may be promoted to linen room workers. There was no
cooperation between departments in transferring workers from one
department to another.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOURS
One of the most important conditions of work to the woman hotel employee
is the number and distribution of the hours she works. As the hotel
industry is a continuous one, most departments operate 18 out of the 24
hours. Within these 18 hours, as has already been pointed out, there are
peaks of work when a larger force is necessary. Broken shifts and long
and short working days are the result. The working days are made even
more irregular by lack of regular lunch periods and regular closing time
for those workers who live in the hotel.
The length and distribution of hours is so different for the different
departments that it is necessary to discuss the housekeeping department
and the kitchen, pantry and dining room departments separately.
Housekeeping Department
The function of the housekeeping department in a hotel is the housing of
guests. It has sole charge of the bedroom floors. The function of the
women workers in this department is to clean the bedrooms and corridors,
to change the linen on the beds, to dust and sweep, supply fresh towels
and soap and care for the baths, private and public. The bulk of this
work falls in the daylight hours when guests have risen and gone about
their business. In the large transient hotels, however, guests are
coming into the hotel and leaving it until midnight. Part of the workers
must, therefore, be on hand to attend to the incidental wants of the
guests and make up new rooms at night.
The women employed in greatest numbers in the housekeeping department
are the chambermaids, who clean rooms and make the beds, the bathmaids,
who clean and scrub out the bathrooms and corridors and the special
cleaners. Of these, the bathmaids’ and cleaners’ work falls in fairly
regular shifts. Bathmaids work a day shift and cleaners, in the big
hotels, work a day and a night shift. Chambermaids, on the other hand,
have night work distributed among them according to the needs of the
establishment.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Bathmaids’ and cleaners’ hours]
The work of the bathmaids and the cleaners is, perhaps, the hardest
women have to do in hotels. All day long they scrub out wash basins,
tubs and toilets, polish brass, and mop up floors on their hands and
knees. Their work is of fairly uniform intensity. It is “humiliating
work,” as one bathmaid said, and for this reason the higher type of maid
refuses to take it. The hours of the bathmaids are, however, the best in
the housekeeping department. This has led some chambermaids in spite of
prejudice against the work to prefer bathmaids’ jobs. In thirteen hotels
in which work was obtained in the housekeeping department bathmaids
worked a nine-hour day or less. The hours of work fell between 7.30 and
5 o’clock. In two hotels, they worked 8½-hour days, 7 hotels a 7½-hour
day, in 3 hotels a 7-hour day and in one hotel a 6½-hour day.[4] Lunch
periods were unstandardized, as most of the bathmaids ate in the hotels.
Footnote 4:
The hours given are exclusive of the lunch period. One-half hour has
been deducted in computing the daily hour schedules.
The special cleaners worked the same daily hours as bathmaids. In some
hotels there was a squad of night cleaners also who worked from 6 P.M.
to 12 midnight, and in the largest hotels there was another shift
working from 12 midnight until 7 A.M. No information could be secured
concerning these night shifts.
The weekly hours for bathmaids in the hotels varied from 45 to 54 hours.
In five of the nine hotels for which weekly hours were obtained
bathmaids were required to work from 45 to 50 hours a week and in four
hotels from 50 to 54 hours a week. The weekly hours for bathmaids are
long in spite of a fairly short working day because they work a
seven-day week. The Sunday hours are shorter than hours for week days,
varying from 5½ to 7 hours. Sunday work for bathmaids seems unnecessary.
The guests stay in their rooms late Sunday morning and do not wish to be
disturbed by cleaning. Bathmaids are used to clean outmaids’ closets and
corridors and to take the places of the chambermaids who have failed to
report for Sunday work. Because they have no regular work to do on
Sunday, bathmaids highly resent the imposition of Sunday work. As their
work is of an especially fatiguing nature they believe they are entitled
to one day of rest. “It’s mean to call you in on Sunday and keep you
sitting around when you might be home resting or off having a good
time,” they would say. In three of the hotels bathmaids were given two
days off a month or every other Sunday.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Chambermaids’ Hours]
The large majority of workers in the housekeeping department are
chambermaids. The hours of work for chambermaids are the most
unstandardized of those of any occupation in the hotel. They vary
greatly from establishment to establishment. Different maids in the same
hotel work different hours, and hours differ for each maid on successive
days of the week. This has made it difficult to give a general statement
of the working hours of chambermaids.
In transient hotels chambermaids work a daily shift in which they change
the linen, dust, and sweep in an assigned number of rooms. This work
falls within a fairly regular period. In addition they take turns at
being on watch in the morning from 7 o’clock to 8, in the afternoon from
4 to 6 o’clock, and at night from 6 to 12 o’clock, or 6 to 10, according
to the establishment. Maids have an irregular lunch period also, except
a small minority in a few hotels who were found to take an hour and go
home. The workers leave the floor in many hotels when they have finished
their daily work often several hours earlier than the leaving time
scheduled. On the other hand, they are often kept beyond the scheduled
leaving hour because there is a shortage of linen and they must wait for
it in order to make up their rooms.
Extra shifts or watches occur in frequencies of from one watch every
twentieth night to one watch every morning, afternoon or evening. In two
hotels no night watch for the regular chambermaids occurred. A relief
watch of maids was added to the staff to work from 6 to 12 o’clock. In
one of the hotels this was installed as an economy measure. In several
other hotels night watches were made optional and extra pay was received
by a maid for each watch taken. Under this system some maids, in order
to increase their earnings, might overtax their strength. Night watch in
the smaller cities lasted only until 10 o’clock and occurred at less
frequent intervals.
When a girl complains of long hours, the housekeeper usually replies
that there is a nice short day on Sunday. The maids do not take this as
a great consolation, for they regard one full day’s rest in seven as
their right. In all but two hotels in which jobs were held, a straight
seven-day week was worked by all chambermaids. The Sunday hours were
shorter, workers usually leaving at 2 P.M. instead of 4 P.M. In the
other two hotels two days off each month were allowed. These days off
were most irregularly given, however, at the discretion of the
housekeeper. If there was a shortage of maids, there were no days off.
One worker in one of these hotels said she had been there two months and
had worked every day.
In 12 of the 14 hotels[5] in which jobs were obtained as chambermaids
the regular daily shift varied from 6½ hours to 8½ hours, exclusive of
the lunch period. The regular weekly shifts varied from 45½ to 59½
hours. _But the extra shifts make the weekly hours worked by
chambermaids excessively long._ The average number of hours worked
weekly in “extra watches” varied from none to 21.04 hours. The actual
working hours for chambermaids, by which is meant the regular weekly
hours plus the average number of extra hours each week, in the 12
hotels, are as follows:
49.38
50.16
50.75
50.94
52.50
52.50
54.50
56.70
59.27
60.90
66.54
70.03
In no case is a 48-hour week found, and it can be seen that in over half
of the hotels chambermaids worked more than 54 hours.
Footnote 5:
Two hotels have been omitted from the analysis of hours because of
inadequate information on extra shifts.
CHART SHOWING
ACTUAL WEEKLY HOURS WORKED BY A CHAMBERMAID
IN ONE NEW YORK CITY HOTEL
7 AM 8 AM 12 NOON 1 PM 3 PM 4 PM 6 PM 9 PM 10 PM 12
MIDNIGHT
MONDAY == =============== ===============
TUESDAY =============== =============== ============
===================
WEDNESDAY =============== ========================
THURSDAY == =============== ===============
FRIDAY =============== =============== ============
SATURDAY =============== ========================
SUNDAY == =============== ==========
The chart on the opposite page shows the weekly hours actually worked by
chambermaids in one sample hotel in New York City. Beside her regular
hours the chambermaid had the morning watch from 7 to 8 A.M., with time
allowed for her to run down and eat her breakfast. The second day there
was a long watch from 6 P.M. to 12 P.M., the following day a short
afternoon watch from 4 to 6 P.M., and every third afternoon after four
o’clock she had to herself.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Hours of linen room workers]
Linen room workers worked a long and short day. They usually reported at
8 o’clock and worked until 11 or 12 o’clock one day. They were then off
until 6 and worked until 12 midnight. The next day they worked from 12
noon to 6 P.M.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Physical effects of excessive hours of work]
In all hotels where “extra watches” were worked the maids felt the
strain of the excessive hours. On days on which an extra watch from 6 to
12 was worked, a maid was on her feet from 8 to 4, then with two hours’
respite from 6 to 12, or 14 hours a day, with short intervals off for
meals. She came to her work the next day with dragging step and a
listless air, complaining that she never got rested. Her habits of life
were disturbed by the irregularity of hours for succeeding days. She
snatched sleep when she could. After work maids always went to their
rooms to rest until supper time. Workers living out frequently kept beds
in the hotel on which to snatch sleep. The work is indoors in an
overheated hotel. Excessive hours prevent the maids from getting
sufficient exercise in the fresh air. It is impossible to keep in good
physical condition under such working conditions. The maids age
prematurely. “Oh, you think I am an old woman. I am only thirty. You’ll
look like me, too, if you stay here long.” Similar statements were made
by several of the maids. The bathmaids particularly were a jaded and
fatigued group of women workers. The older ones in New York City were
bent from constant stooping. Even strong, young Polish girls, who were
frequently found working as bathmaids in up-state cities, were so tired
out at night that they spent their evenings lying on their beds.
The complaint of maids regarding hours of work was general. In several
hotels there had been an organized protest to the manager against a
seven-day week. In one hotel, with the help of a union, maids were
organized and the night watch was abolished. For the most part, however,
complaint took the form of individual grumbling, dissatisfaction, and
changing of jobs. One worker greeted a new worker as she came into her
bedroom sick after a night watch on a very hot night, “They work you
like dogs here, you better not stay.” “I was so tired last night I could
have cried,” said another worker. “My feet were all swollen this
morning. These night watches will kill me yet.” Many complained of sore
feet and varicose veins from continual standing. Of the seven-day week,
one young maid said, “You don’t mind so much in the winter time, but in
the summer to see everybody going off to the country and you working all
day indoors in a hot, stuffy hotel, with never a day to go anywhere or
see your family—it’s terrible.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Effect of long hours on efficiency]
The hotel which installed a relief night shift for chambermaids as an
economy measure, was wise. After observing the overtired, listless maids
skimp their work the day following a long night watch, one cannot but
conclude that long hours of work for women are a bad business policy.
The tired worker not only does poor work herself, but she demoralizes
the other more alert workers on the force. “Just make up the beds with
the sheets that’s on ’em. Those people aren’t going out today anyway.
Give the rooms a lick and a promise, I say. I’m tired today,” is often
heard while the maids are eating lunch. A feeling of resentment against
long hours tends to make the workers dissatisfied and careless about
their work. All feeling of responsibility for good work is diminished
accordingly. In order to mollify maids, housekeepers allow them to leave
their stations as soon as they have covered the work on their daily
shift. This makes for hastily finished work and a further unstandardized
day. It means that, instead of all maids getting a regular number of
hours off duty, clever and unscrupulous individuals steal time at the
expense of others. The effect of long hours on attendance is marked.
Maids frequently take days off without pay. Some make a practice of
turning up for Sunday work several times a month only. And after the
continued strain of some months of night watches and seven-day week
work, maids feel they “need a vacation and a change” and leave their
jobs.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Effect of long hours on recreation]
Maids who live in a hotel go out little unless they are very young.
After working hours they lie on their beds and sleep or gossip. When
they do leave the hotel it is either to go to mass or to find some
exciting form of amusement. The younger girls made “dates” casually with
guests and other men to go to the movies and Coney Island. Girls who are
more backward had often been nowhere outside the hotel, except to
church. A Danish girl, who was working in a large New York City hotel,
said she knew no one in New York City and had not been anywhere except
to go to church with another maid one Sunday and she wouldn’t go there
again because they all laughed at her when she took off her hat. She
said she was too tired to go to the movies at night because these night
watches were “fierce”—she was just tired all the time. She worked in one
of the hotels which had an extra watch every day. Another worker, a
young Polish bathmaid, complained, “I am too tired to ever go home and
see my people any more at night. I used to go every other night and I
get awful lonesome for them now, but I just can’t get cleaned up and
dress.” This girl was sixteen and had been working as a bathmaid for
three months. Another young bathmaid said, “I am too tired to ever go to
dances. I just want to rest at night. I can’t stand it anyway, it’s too
hard.”
Dining Room, Kitchen and Pantry Departments
[Sidenote: Waitresses’ Hours]
The work of the waitress in a hotel reaches its peak at meal hours and
slackens between times. For this reason waitresses work “broken shifts.”
The daily and weekly hours of the waitresses interviewed were not as
unstandardized or as excessive in length as hours for chambermaids. They
worked a six-day week in all cases. But the distribution of hours of
work in broken shifts caused great inconvenience to the workers. Those
who lived in were apathetic but those who lived out and wished to return
home after hours of work complained bitterly. If the worker lives any
distance from the hotel it is impossible for her to change her clothes
twice, allow time for street car ride, and return to work in the rest
period allowed between the morning and the evening shift. There is,
besides, the expense of extra carfare to be considered.
In one New York City hotel, according to a woman worker’s statement, she
reported for work at 11 A.M. and worked till 4 P.M. She then left her
station for 1½ hours’ rest and returned at 5.30 to work until 9 P.M. She
ate her meals and changed her clothes upon her own time. She complained
that she could not go home in the afternoon because she lived too far
away to change to street clothes twice and allow for car rides. The
hotel had a rest room where she stayed for the 1½-hour rest period. “Of
course,” she said, “it is wasted time.” She worked no overtime, but the
work was heavy during the hours in which she worked so that she was
often too tired and nervous to eat her meals.
In another hotel a worker stated that she worked broken shifts one week
in the day time and straight shifts the next week when she was on night
work. One week she worked from 6 A.M. to 11 A.M., had a rest period from
11 A.M. to 6 P.M., and worked 6 P.M. to 9 P.M. The next week she worked
from 5.30 P.M. until 12 P.M. She ate her meals on her own time, but
changed her clothes on working time. Overtime varied from 1 to 1½ hours
a day.
In the third hotel for which information was secured the waitresses
lived in. The work was divided into three shifts; from 6.30 A.M. to 8.30
A.M., from 10.30 A.M. to 2.30 P.M., and from 5.30 P.M. to 7.30 P.M. This
makes an 8-hour day if only the hours actually worked are counted in.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Hours of pantry maids and kitchen help]
In the kitchen and pantry the hours range from 8 to 9 daily with a
six-day week. Here again the broken shifts and the long and short day
were found. In the two hotels where jobs were obtained in the kitchens
and pantries, there were two groups of women dishwashers, a day shift
and a night shift. The day shift worked from 7 A.M. to 4 P.M., or an
8½-hour day, exclusive of ½ hour for lunch. The night shift worked from
4 P.M. to 1 A.M., or an 8½-hour day. They worked six days, or a 51-hour
week.
The other workers in the pantry and kitchen of one of these hotels
worked broken shifts. The workers had rotating shifts with a long day
and then a short day. On the day before the weekly day off, each worker
worked a 12 or 13-hour day. The irregularity of a pantry worker’s hours
and the distribution over a seven-day period, is shown on the chart on
the following page. The length of working hours for the worker in this
instance ranged from 6 to 13 hours daily. On days on which the long
shift was worked, the hours were distributed over a period of 18 hours.
The total weekly hours of this pantry worker were 63. The two other
pantry workers in this hotel worked a 56-hour week and a 60-hour week,
respectively. Since a girl always worked a long day of 12 to 13 hours
before her free day, she was unable to derive full benefit from it
because of fatigue.
CHART SHOWING
ACTUAL WEEKLY HOURS OF A PANTRY WORKER IN A NEW YORK CITY HOTEL.
6 AM 7 AM 12 NOON 1 PM 6 PM 8 PM 12 MIDNIGHT 1 AM
MONDAY ========== ====================
TUESDAY ===============
WEDNESDAY ============= ====================
THURSDAY DAY-OFF
FRIDAY ========== =====================
SATURDAY ===============
SUNDAY_ ========== ====================
As the other hotel in which a pantry job was held was much larger,
pantry and kitchen work was more specialized. There were pantry maids,
coffee women, butter and cream women, and vegetable women. The butter
and cream women and the pantry maids (salad girls) had the most
irregular shifts. Two pantry maids worked a straight shift from 7 A.M.
to 4 P.M. or a 9-hour day; two worked broken shifts from 8 A.M. to 2
P.M. and from 6 P.M. to 8 P.M., or an 8-hour day; and one worked from 4
P.M. to 1 A.M., a 9-hour day. These women ate their meals on the job so
no time has been deducted for lunch hours.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The effect of broken and irregular shifts on the worker]
Broken shifts distributed over a long period of time with scheduled
hours of work changing from day to day are a great hardship to the woman
worker. Aside from the fact that two hours in the middle of the
afternoon are useless to a woman if she must dress and take a car to go
home, and take a car to return and dress again on reaching the hotel,
broken shifts mean that meals and sleep must be snatched at irregular
intervals. Such a hit or miss existence, with no regular hours for work,
rest and recreation, does not make for the physical well-being of the
worker.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WAGES
When taking a position in a hotel the woman worker bargains as an
individual for the wages she is to receive. She is without the support
of a labor organization which would have set a standard for her
occupation and would assist her in maintaining it. She applies for work
in an industry where the wage scales are determined largely by the
inclination of the hotel managers and by the labor supply. She must go
from hotel to hotel to learn what is being paid, for the wage
opportunities vary from establishment to establishment.
She cannot even estimate the value of the wage she is to receive in the
majority of jobs. This is due to two uncertain elements in the earnings
of hotel workers; tipping and compensation other than money in the form
of board and room. Because she is not in a position to gauge the amount
of the tips she will receive and the quality of the board and lodging,
the only recourse of the applicant is to try out the job for a time.
“Well, I’ll try it out for a week and see how I make out,” is the common
expression of the new worker. If it is not a good house for tips, if she
can’t eat the food, and if the living-in conditions are unbearable, she
will go somewhere else and try again. By trying out job after job she
loses time and greatly decreases her yearly earnings.
Cash Wages
[Sidenote: Wages when the workers live out]
In the smaller hotels of New York City and the hotels of the smaller
cities of the State, a straight cash wage was paid to women workers in
all occupations. The wages of chambermaids and bathmaids varied from
$8.77 a week to $16 in the 46 hotels where wage rates were obtained. Of
these, the one hotel paying $8.77 a week was the largest hotel of a
second class city where two large factories employing great numbers of
women had closed down. The housekeeper said, “The works have shut down,
so you can get workers at any price.” The one hotel paying $16 a week
employed only three maids on a long-hour schedule.
The straight cash wages paid to chambermaids and bathmaids in the 46
hotels are as follows:
1 paid at $8 but less $9 per
least than week
9 " " 9 " " 10 " "
11 " " 10 " " 11 " "
9 " " 11 " " 12 " "
11 " " 12 " " 13 " "
2 " " 13 " " 14 " "
2 " " 14 " " 15 " "
0 " " 15 " " 16 " "
1[6] " " 16 " " 17 " "
Footnote 6:
The actual wage paid in this group was $16.00.
Few women workers were employed in the kitchens and pantries of these
hotels. No waitresses were employed.
A comparison of these wage rates may be made with the minimum wage fixed
for hotel workers in 1919 in the District of Columbia where the cost of
living is comparable to that of New York State. The Minimum Wage Board
of the District of Columbia decided that a wage of $16.50 a week was the
minimum on which a self-supporting woman could live. In no case do the
hotels investigated in New York State pay this minimum when a straight
cash wage is paid and the workers do not live in the hotels. It can be
seen from these figures that 40 of the 46 hotels pay between $9 and $13
or an average of $11 per week.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Wages including lodging but no meals]