BUSINESS PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO HOUSEWORK
Living outside place of employment.
Housework limited to eight hours a day.
Housework limited to six days a week.
The observance of legal holidays.
Extra pay for overtime.
LIVING OUTSIDE PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT
There are many housewives who are very much opposed to the adoption
of a plan enabling household employees to live outside their place of
employment. They claim that it is wiser to keep them under constant
supervision day and night in order to prevent the introduction of
disease or the acquisition of bad habits.
There is more risk of disease being introduced into the home, and of bad
habits being contracted by allowing one's children to associate with
other children in schools, public or private, and by letting them play
in the streets and public parks, where they mingle with more or less
undesirable companions, than by having the housework performed by
employees who come each day to their work and return to their homes
at night when their duties are over. Nevertheless no sensible parents
would keep their children shut up in the house, only allowing them to
go out of doors for a few hours once a week, for fear of contagion or
contamination, and yet this is just what the housewife has been doing
for years with her household employees under the firm impression that
she was protecting them as well as herself.
Present statistics, however, upon the morality and immorality of women
who belong to what is at present termed the "servant class," prove only
too clearly that the "protection" provided by the employer's home does
not protect. The shelter thus given serves too often to encourage a life
of deception, especially as in reality the housewife knows but little of
what takes place "below stairs."
The "servants' quarters" are, as a rule, far enough away from the other
rooms of the house for much to transpire there without the knowledge of
the "mistress of the house," but who has not heard her complain of the
misconduct of her employees? Startling discoveries have been made at the
most unexpected times and from the most unexpected quarters. One lady
found her maid was in the habit of going out at night after the family
had retired, and leaving the front door unlocked in order to regain
admittance in the early morning without arousing the family. Another
housewife discovered one day that her cook's husband, whose existence
until then was unknown, had been coming for several months to her house
for his dinner. Every householder finds that in the late evening her
"servants" entertain their numerous "cousins" and friends at her
expense. Moreover, they do not hesitate to use the best china, glass,
and silver for special parties and draw upon the household supplies for
the choicest meats and wines. And because they cannot go out in the day
time, it is not unusual to find some friend or relative comes to spend
the entire day with them, and in consequence the housewife not only
feeds her "help" but a string of hangers-on as well. Why should she be
surprised that she does not get an adequate return for the amount of
money she spends? And these things take place, not only during the
temporary absence of the employer, but even while she is sitting
peacefully in the library and listening to a parlor lecture on the
relations of capital and labor.
Women say tearfully or bravely on such occasions: "What can be done
to make servants better? They are getting worse every day." And the
housewife (one might almost call her by Samuel Pepys's pleasing phrase,
"the poor wretch") then pours out to any sympathetic ear endless
recitals of aggravating, worrying, nerve-racking experiences. Instead of
putting an end to such a regrettable state of affairs that would never
be tolerated by any business employer, she seems content to bewail her
fate and clings still more steadfastly to obsolete methods.
Why does she not adopt the methods of the business man in dealing with
his employees? The advisability of having household employees live
outside their place of employment is so apparent that it ought to appeal
to every one. There would be no longer the necessity of putting aside
and of furnishing certain rooms of the house for their accommodation:
a practice which in the majority of families is quite a serious
inconvenience and always an expense. In small homes where only one maid
is kept, it may not make much difference to give up one room to her, but
where several employees are needed, it means very often that many rooms
must be used as sleeping apartments for them, frequently too a sitting
room or a special dining room is given them. This is not all, for the
rooms must be furnished and kept clean and warm, and supplied with an
unlimited amount of gas and electricity. In many families the boarding
and lodging of household employees cause as much anxiety and expense to
the housewife as to provide for her own family.
And why does she do it? Why does she consent to take upon herself so
much extra trouble for nothing? For, although she offers good food and
a bed besides excellent wages to all who work for her, she is the most
poorly served of all employers to-day.
In the great feudal castles of the Middle Ages it was not deemed
safe for women to venture forth alone, even in the daytime, and so
those engaged in housework were naturally compelled to live under their
Master's roof, eating at his table and sitting "below the salt." But
the Master and the Serf of feudal times disappeared long ago, only the
Mistress and her "servants" remain.
To-day, however, "servants" no longer sit at their employer's table;
they remain in the kitchen, where as a rule they are given to eat what
is left from the family meals. Some housewives, from motives of kindness
and consideration for the welfare of those in their employ, have special
meals prepared for them and served in a dining-room of their own at
hours which do not conflict with the meals of the family. But this does
not always meet with gratitude or even due appreciation; the disdainful
way in which Bridget often complains of the food too generously provided
for her is well known.
A chambermaid came one day to her employer and said she did not wish to
complain but thought it better to say frankly that she was not satisfied
with what she was getting to eat in her house: she wanted to have roast
beef for dinner more often, at least three or four times a week, for she
did not care to eat mutton, nor steak, and never ate pork, nor could
she, to quote her own words "fill up on bread and vegetables as the
other girls did in the kitchen."
Then, and only then, did her employer wake up with a start to the
realization of the true position every housewife occupies in the eyes
of her household employees. They evidently regard her in the light of
a caterer; she does the marketing not only for her family but for them
too. She pays a cook high wages, not only to cook meals for herself and
family, but for her employees also.
For the first time in her life, this housewife asked herself the
following questions: Why should she allow her household employees to
live in her house? Why should she consent to board them at her expense?
Why should she continue to place at their disposal a bedroom each, a
private bathroom, a sitting room or a dining room? Why should she allow
them to make use of her kitchen and laundry to do their own personal
washing, even providing them with soap and starch, irons and an ironing
board, fuel and gas? Why should she do all this for them when no
business employer, man or woman, ever does it? Was it simply because her
mother, her grandmother, her great-grandmother had been in the habit of
doing it?
This awakening was the beginning of the end of all the trouble and
expense which she had endured for so many years in connection with the
boarding and lodging of her "servants." To-day she has no "servants";
she has household employees who come to her house each day, just as
other employees go each day to their place of employment. They take no
meals in her house, and her housekeeping expenses have diminished as
much as her own comfort has increased. Her employees are better and more
efficient than any she ever had under the old régime, and nothing could
persuade her to return to her former methods of housekeeping.
The cost of providing meals for domestic employees varies according to
the mode of living of each individual family, and of late it has been
the subject of much discussion. Some important details, however, seem
to be generally overlooked, for the cost of the food is the only thing
usually considered by the average housewife. To this first expense must
be added the cost of pots and pans for cooking purposes; even under
careful management, kitchen utensils are bound to wear out and must be
replaced. Then there is the cost of the extra fuel or gas or electricity
required to cook the food, nor must one forget to count the extra work
of the cook to prepare the meals, and of the kitchen maid or of some
other maid to wash up the dishes after each meal served to employees.
There is also the expense of buying kitchen plates and dishes, glasses,
cups and saucers, knives and forks, etc. Every housewife is in the habit
of providing kitchenware for the use of her employees.
The total sum of all these items would astonish those who think that
the actual expense of giving meals to household employees is not a very
great one and is limited to the cost of the food they eat; even this
last expense is considerably augmented by the careless and wasteful way
in which provisions are generally handled by those who do not have to
pay for them. When ways and means are discussed among housewives to
reduce the present "high cost of living," it would be well to advise all
women to try the experiment of having their household employees live
outside their place of employment. The result from an economic point
of view alone is amazing, and the relief it brings the housewife who
is no longer obliged to provide food and sleeping accommodations for
her employees is so great that one wonders why she has been willing to
burden herself with these responsibilities for so many years.
There was once a time when women did not go out alone to eat in a
restaurant, but to-day one sees about as many women as men eating their
midday meal in public. If women engaged in general business prove
themselves thus capable of self care, there seems to be no reason why
household employees, who often receive higher wages than shop girls and
stenographers, should not be able to do the same. They would enjoy their
meals more outside, albeit the food given them in their employer's house
is undoubtedly of a better quality; the change of surroundings and the
opportunity of meeting friends, of leaving their work behind them, would
compensate them. In any event, it is clearly proved by the scarcity of
women applying for positions in private houses that these two advantages
only to be obtained in domestic labor--board and lodging--do not attract
the working woman of the present day.
The joy of eating the bread of independence is an old and deeply rooted
feeling. There is an ancient fable of Æsop about the Dog and the Wolf
which portrays this sentiment in a very quaint and delightful manner.
(Sir Roger l'Estrange's translation.)
THE DOG AND THE WOLF
There was a Hagged Carrion of a _Wolf_, and a Jolly Sort of a
Gentile _Dog_, with Good Flesh upon's Back, that fell into Company
together upon the King's High-Way. The _Wolf_ was wonderfully
pleas'd with his Companion, and as Inquisitive to Learn how be
brought himself to That Blessed State of Body. Why, says the _Dog_,
I keep my Master's House from Thieves, and I have very Good Meat,
Drink, and Lodging for my pains. Now if you'll go along with Me,
and do as I do, you may fare as I fare. The _Wolf_ Struck up the
Bargain, and so away they Trotted together: But as they were
Jogging on, the _Wolf_ spy'd a Bare Place about the _Dog's_ Neck
where the Hair was worn off. Brother (says he) how comes this I
prethee? Oh, That's Nothing, says the _Dog_, but the Fretting of my
_Collar_ a little. Nay, says T'other, if there be a _Collar_ in the
Case, I know Better Things than to sell my Liberty for a Crust.
THE MORAL
...'Tis a Comfort to have Good Meat and Drink at Command, and Warm
Lodging: But He that sells his Freedom for the Cramming of his
Belly, has but a Hard Bargain of it.
In modern business enterprises, there is hardly a single instance of an
employer who is willing to board his employees, nor would he consider
for a moment the proposition of allowing them to remain at their place
of employment all night and of providing sleeping accommodations for
them. Neither in consideration of benefiting them, nor with the view of
benefiting himself by thus making sure of having them on hand for work
early the next morning, would he ever consent to such an arrangement.
When he needs some one to watch over his interests in the night time,
he engages a night watchman, a very much more economical plan than to
provide lodging for all his employees.
Why should the housewife be the only employer to assume the burden of
a double responsibility toward her employees? Perhaps in the country,
where it might be impossible for them to live outside her home, such
a necessity might arise, but in cities and suburban towns, there is
absolutely no valid reason why household employees should sleep, eat,
and live under their employer's roof. It is a custom only, and truly
a custom that would be "more honored in the breach than in the
observance."
HOUSEWORK LIMITED TO EIGHT HOURS A DAY
In the home woman's work is said to be never ended. If this be true, it
is the fault of the woman who plans the work, for in all the positions
of life, work can be carried on indefinitely if badly planned.
It is the essential thesis of this little volume that the domestic labor
of women should be limited to a fixed number of hours per day in private
houses.
It is not unusual at the present day for a woman to work twelve, or
fourteen hours a day, or even longer, when she earns her living as a
household employee. A man's mental and physical forces begin to wane at
the end of eight, nine, or ten hours of constant application to the same
work, and a woman's strength is not greater than a man's. The truth of
the proposition, abstractly considered, has been long acknowledged and
nowadays requires no argument.
When a woman accepts a position in business, she is told exactly how
many hours a day she must work, but when a woman is engaged to fill a
domestic position in a family, the number of hours she is expected to
give her employer is never specified. She is simply told that she must
be on duty early in the morning before the family arises, and that she
may consider herself off duty as soon as the family for whom she is
working has withdrawn for the night. Is it surprising that under such
conditions working women are not very enthusiastic over the domestic
proposition to-day?
A household employee ought to have her hours of work as clearly defined
as if she were a business employee, and there is no reason why the
eight-hour labor law could not be applied as successfully to housework
as to any other enterprise.
Work in business is generally divided into two periods. Yet this
division can not always be effected, and in railroad and steamship
positions, in post offices, upon trolley lines, in hotels, in hospitals,
and in other cases too numerous to mention, where work must follow a
continuous round, the working hours are divided into more than two
periods, according to the nature of the work and the interests of the
employer, not however exceeding a fixed number of hours per day or per
week.
It would be far better for the housewife as well as for her employees,
if the housework were limited in a similar way. But with the
introduction of the eight-hour law in the home, certain new conditions
would have to be rigidly enforced in order to ensure success.
Firstly, the employee should be made to understand that during the eight
hours of work agreed upon, she must be engaged in actual work for her
employer.
Secondly, when an employee is off duty, she should not be allowed to
remain with or to talk to the other employee or employees who are still
on duty. When her work is finished, she ought to leave her employer's
house. The non-observance of either of these two points produces a
demoralizing effect.
Thirdly, a general knowledge of cooking, and serving meals, of cleaning
and taking proper care of the rooms of a house, of attending correctly
to the telephone and the door bell, of sewing, of washing and ironing,
and of taking care of children, should be insisted upon from all
household employees.
There are many housewives who will state that this last condition is
impossible, that it is asking too much from one employee; and since it
is hard to-day to find a good cook, it will be still harder to find one
who understands other household work as well. But those who jump to
these conclusions have never tried the experiment. It is not only
possible but practicable.
Judging from the ordinary intelligence displayed by the average cook and
housemaid in the majority of private homes to-day, it ought not to seem
incredible that the duties of both could be easily mastered by young
women of ordinary ability. A woman who knows how to prepare and cook a
meal, may easily learn the correct way of serving it, and the possession
of this knowledge ought not to prevent her from being capable of
sweeping a room, or making a bed, or taking care of children.
It is above all in families where only a few employees are kept, that
the housewife will quickly realize how much it is to her immediate
advantage to employ women who know how to do all kinds of housework,
instead of having those who make a specialty of one particular branch.
The specialization of work in private houses has been carried to
such an extreme that it has become one of the greatest drawbacks
to successful housekeeping in small families. Under this system of
specialization, a household employee is not capable in emergency of
taking up satisfactorily the work of another. Even if she be able to do
it, she often professes ignorance for fear it may prolong her own hours
of labor, or because, as she sometimes frankly admits, she does not
consider it "her place." The chambermaid does not know how to cook, the
cook does not know how to do the chamberwork, the waitress, in her turn,
can do neither cooking nor chamberwork, and the annoyance to the whole
family caused by the temporary absence of one of its regular employees
is enough to spoil for the time being all the traditional comforts of
home.
In hotels and public institutions, and in large private establishments,
where the work demands a numerous staff of employees, the specialization
of the work is the only means for its successful accomplishment, but in
the average home requiring from one to four or five employees no system
could be worse from an economic point of view, nor less conducive to the
comfort of the family.
Specialization produces another bad effect, for it prevents the
existence of the feeling of equality among employees in the same house.
Each "specialist" speaks rather disparagingly of the other's work,
regardless of the relative position her own special "art" may occupy to
the unprejudiced mind.
An amusing instance of this was recently shown at a country place near
New York, when "the lady of the manor" asked a friend to send some one
down from the city to help with the housework during the temporary
absence of her maid. The friend could not find any one at the domestic
employment agencies willing to go, but at last through the Charity
Organization Society, she heard of a woman temporarily out of
employment, who had been frequently employed as scrubwoman on the
vacation piers. When the work was offered her, she accepted it
immediately. Arriving at her new employer's house, she began at once to
scrub the floors, and when the work was completed, she sat on a chair
and took no further notice of anything. The next day, having no more
floors to scrub, the same general lack of interest was manifested. She
was asked to wash the dishes after dinner. She replied that she was not
used to "dishwashing," and did not know how to do it. She was persuaded,
however, to make the attempt, but performed her new task very
reluctantly. The following morning she said she felt "lonely" and
would return at once to the city. As the train came in sight to bear
her back to her accustomed surroundings, she gave a snort of relief,
and exclaimed: "I'm a scrubwoman, I am. I ain't going to do no fancy
dishwashing, no, not for no one; I'm a scrubwoman." And she clambered up
into the train with the alacrity of a woman whose dignity had received a
hard blow.
The above illustration is typical of the spirit subjected to the system
of specialization, and shows how unwise it is to encourage it in the
home where all branches of housework could be easily made
interchangeable.
Under the new system of limiting housework to eight hours a day, the
housewife must insist that all applicants be willing and able to perform
any part of the housework she may assign, and their duties ought not
to be specified otherwise than by the term HOUSEWORK. The employee who
refuses to wait on the table during the absence of the waitress, or to
cook, or to do the laundry work, or to answer the telephone, or to carry
packages from her employer's automobile to the library, because she does
not consider it "her place to do these things," should be instantly
discharged.
These very important conditions being understood and conceded, the
choice and arrangement of the eight hours' work must necessarily lie
with each individual housewife. Each family is different and has
different claims upon its time. The "rush hours" of social life are
sometimes in the evening, and sometimes in the afternoon, and again in
some families, especially where there are small children, the breakfast
hour seems the most complicated of the day. All these details have to be
carefully thought of when making an eight hour schedule. At the end of
this book a set of schedules is placed. Any intelligent housewife can
understand them, imitate them, and in many instances improve them. They
are merely given as elementary examples.
According to the number of employees she engages, the housewife will
have eight, sixteen, or twenty-four hours of work to distribute among
them, and to meet her peculiar needs she will find it necessary at the
outset to devote some hours to a satisfactory scheme. After testing
several, she will probably have to begin all over again before she
finally succeeds in evolving one that is available. But the problem is
interesting in itself, and always admits of a solution.
It may not be amiss to make this final suggestion for the woman who is
willing to give the new plan a fair trial: she should follow the example
of the business man when he is in need of new employees, and advertise
for help, stating hours of work, and requesting that all applications
be made by letter. This disposes rapidly of the illiterate, and in the
majority of cases, a woman who writes a good, legible, and accurate
hand, is more apt to be efficient in her work than one who sends in a
dirty, careless, ill-expressed and badly spelled application. Through
advertising one comes into touch with many women it would be impossible
to reach otherwise. It is also the most advantageous way of bringing the
employer and employee together, inasmuch as it dispenses entirely with
the services of a third person, who, naturally can not be expected to
offer gratuitous service.
The plan of limiting housework to eight hours a day is not an idle
theory; it has been in successful operation for several years. Yet it
is not easy to change the habit of years. There are many housewives who
would loudly declare it impossible to conform to such business rules in
the household; and many of the older generation of cooks and housemaids
would agree. But when such a plan has been generally adopted, the
domestic labor problem will be solved, and it does not appear that in
the present state of social organization, it can be solved in any other
way.
HOUSEWORK LIMITED TO SIX DAYS A WEEK
Under the present system of housekeeping, there is not one day out of
the three hundred and sixty-five that a domestic employee has the right
to claim as a day of rest, not even a legal holiday.
It is remarkable that this fact, showing so forcibly one of the
greatest disadvantages connected with housework, should attract so
little attention. No one seems to care about the fate of the "servant
girl," as she is so often disdainfully called. During six days of the
week she works on the average fourteen hours a day, but no one stops
to notice that she is tired. On the seventh day, instead of resting as
every other employee has the right to do, her work is merely reduced to
nine, eight, or perhaps seven hours; and yet she needs a day of rest
as much as every other woman who earns her bread. The rights of the
domestic employee are ignored on all sides apparently. In public
demonstrations of dissatisfaction between employers and employees the
most oppressed class of the working people--the women who do
housework--has never yet been represented.
This is probably due to two causes: the first is because women
dissatisfied with housework are rapidly finding positions in business
where they enjoy rights and privileges denied them in domestic labor;
and the second is because the great majority of women engaged in
housework are foreign-born. These women learn quickly to understand and
speak English, but they do not often read and write it, and as they are
kept in close confinement in their employer's house, they have rarely
the opportunity of hearing about the emancipation of the modern working
woman. Most of them are of a very humble origin, and being debarred from
business positions on account of their ignorance and inexperience, they
are thankful to earn money in any kind of employment regardless of the
length of working hours.
Their children, however, who are American born and enjoy better
educational advantages, do not follow in their footsteps when the
time comes for them to earn their living. They become stenographers,
typewriters, dressmakers, milliners, shirt waist makers, cash-girls,
saleswomen, etc.; in fact any occupation where work is limited to a
fixed number of hours a day and confined to six days a week, is
considered more desirable than housework. The result is that the
housewife is compelled to take for her employees only those who are
rejected by every other employer; the capable, independent, intelligent
American woman is hardly ever seen in domestic service.
In Washington, D.C., a law (the La Follette Eight Hour Law for Women in
the District of Columbia) was recently passed limiting to eight hours
a day and six days a week practically all work in which women are
industrially employed; "hotel servants" are included under the
provisions of this law, but "domestic servants in private homes" are
expressly excluded.
If this new law be considered a just and humane measure for women who
are business employees, and if business houses be compelled to observe
it, one naturally wonders why it should not prove to be an equally
just and humane law for women who work in private families, and why
should not the home be compelled to observe it too? Instead of being a
barrier to progress, the home ought to coöperate with the state in the
enforcement of laws for the amelioration of the condition of working
women. The home, being presided over by a woman, presumably of some
education and intelligence, should be a most fitting place in which to
apply a law designed to protect women against excessive hours of labor.
Why should housework in private homes be an exception to all other work?
Is it because some housewives say, in self justification and frequently
without an accurate knowledge of what it is to do housework week after
week without one day's release, that housework is easier than other
work? Is it easier? Is it not sometimes harder? However, it is not a
question of housework being harder or easier than other work, but of the
desirability of having it limited to eight hours a day and six days a
week. Why should the housewife be allowed to remain in such a state of
apathy in regard to the physical welfare of her household employees?
"Six days shalt thou labor" has all the sanction of scripture, of
morals, and of common experience. It is only fair that women who work in
private families should have one day out of seven as a day of rest, even
as their more fortunate sisters in the business world. If by adopting
such a law in the home the housewife found that her work was performed
far more efficiently and willingly than at present, would it not be as
much to her advantage as to the advantage of those she employs to limit
the hours of household labor to six days a week? Many housewives may
object to this proposition inasmuch as the work in a home can not be
suspended even for a day. But when two or more employees work in a
private home, it is very easy to plan the housework so that each
employee may have a different day of the week as a "day of rest,"
without the comfort of the family being disturbed by the temporary
absence of one of the employees. It is only in families where one
employee is kept that it may make a very serious difference to the
housewife when her "maid-of-all-work" is away for one entire day each
week. Nevertheless the comfort of an employer ought not to outweigh
justice to an employee.
There are many ways of regulating the housework, as will be seen in the
schedules at the end of this book, in order to give one day of freedom
each week to household employees without causing much inconvenience to
the housewife. By continuing to refuse this privilege to women employed
in domestic labor, housekeeping is becoming more and more complicated.
Already it is such a common occurrence in some cities and in many parts
of the country, not to find any woman willing to do housework, that
many housewives are beginning to think that their future comfort in all
household matters will depend entirely upon new labor saving devices and
upon the help of the community rather than upon the increased knowledge
and skill of domestic employees.
There exists a prevailing impression, too, that housework has lost its
dignity, and that at this period of the world's social history, it is
impossible to restore it for women have stepped above it. But this is
not true. The fact is that housework has remained stationary while other
work has gained in freedom and dignity. Without noisy protestations, or
indignant speeches delivered in public, women have slowly and silently,
one by one, deserted housework as a career on account of the narrowing,
servile, and unjust conditions inseparable from it at the present day.
Let these conditions be removed and new regulations based upon modern
business principles take their place, and then it will be seen that
housework has never lost its dignity, and the very women who abandoned
it will be the first to choose it again as a means of earning their
livelihood.
As a proof of this, the following experience may be cited of a New Work
woman who wished to obtain a domestic employee for general housework.
She went to several employment agencies and at the end of a week she
had seen four applicants; three were foreigners and spoke English so
brokenly that they could never have been left in charge of a telephone.
Not one of the four was worth considering after investigating their
references, and these were the only women she could find willing to do
general housework. Upon the advice of a friend, the perplexed housewife
advertised in one of the daily newspapers, but only a few women applied
for the position and these were far from being satisfactory. She then
inserted another advertisement expressed in the following words:
"Wanted: a young woman to help with housework, eight hours a day, six
days a week, sleep home. Apply by letter only."
This last clause was added to prevent any one from applying for the
position who could not write English, as it was absolutely necessary
that the person engaged to do the housework should be capable of
attending correctly to the telephone. On the same day the advertisement
appeared, eighty-five applications by letter were received, and twenty
more came the following day. All who wrote expressed their willingness
to fill the position of a domestic employee and to do anything in
the way of housework under the new conditions specified in the
advertisement. Only one stated she would do no washing. Many who replied
to this advertisement had occupied positions, which according to the
present standard, were far superior to housework; many, too, were
married women, experienced in all household work, and most anxious to
accept a position in a private family, a position that did not break up
their own home life.
The housewife was bewildered by the unexpected result of her
advertisement: the tables were turned at last. Instead of being one of
many looking in vain for a good domestic employee, she found that she
had now the advantage of being able to choose from more than a hundred
applicants one who would best suit her own peculiar needs.
The same advertisement has been inserted at different times and has
always brought the same remarkable result: from one hundred to one
hundred and sixty answers each time. It is true that all who present
themselves may not be efficient, but efficiency speedily comes to the
front when upon it alone depends a desirable position.
Two very important facts came to light through the help of this
advertisement; one was to find so many women eager to do housework when
it was limited to eight hours a day and six days a week, and the other
was to hear that they were willing to board and lodge themselves, as
well as work, for the same wages that "servants" are accustomed to
receive, although to the latter the housewife invariably gives gratis
all food and sleeping accommodations. These two facts alone prove beyond
a doubt that by applying business principles to housework all objections
to it as a means of earning a livelihood are removed.
It is quite likely that for a time the old fashioned "mistress," and the
old fashioned "servant" will continue to cling to past customs; but once
it is proved that domestic labor limited to eight hours a day and six
days a week, brings a better, more intelligent, more efficient class of
employees to the home, the most obdurate employer will change her mind.
No legislation is needed. If all who are trying to solve the "servant
question" will begin to practice the new plan in their own homes, the
future will take care of itself and the old ways will die a natural
death.
THE OBSERVANCE OF LEGAL HOLIDAYS IN THE HOME
The pleasure brought by the advent of a holiday into the lives of
the working people can hardly be overestimated, and it is doubtful
if holidays would ever have become legalized had they not proved of
distinct value to the masses. To have one day each week free from the
steady grind of one's dally work is a great relief, but to have a
holiday is something still better, for it usually means a day set apart
for general rejoicing.
Why do all housewives persistently disregard the right of the household
employee to have legal holidays? The reason generally brought forward
is that many families need their employees more on a holiday than on
any other day. In many cases this is quite true on account of family
reunions or the entertaining of friends, but very often the housewife
could easily dispense with the services of her employees on a holiday.
She does not do it, however, or only occasionally, because it is not the
custom to grant holidays to women who work in private homes.
If it be impossible, on account of the exigencies of home life, to grant
all legal holidays to household employees, there are many different ways
of planning the housework so that other days may be given instead.
Sometimes the day before or the day after a holiday will give as much
pleasure as the day itself. A woman who is at the head of a home has
many opportunities of coming into close contact with her employees; she
can easily ascertain their wishes in this respect and act accordingly.
It is more the fact of being entitled to a holiday than to have it on
a certain day that ought to be emphasized.
Domestic employees would be benefited by having these extra days of
liberty, just as much as all other employees. A trial is all that is
necessary to show how much better a household employee will work after
having a holiday. She returns to her duties with renewed strength
and the knowledge that she is no longer forced to play the rôle of
Cinderella gives her a fresh interest in life. Unfortunately the
housewife has been accustomed for so many years to have her "servants"
work for her all day long on every day of the week, with only a few
hours off duty "on every other Sunday and on every other Thursday," that
she is rather inclined to resent such an innovation as the observance
of legal holidays in domestic labor. She fails to perceive that by her
present attitude she shows herself in a very unfavorable light as an
employer, for the lack of holidays is decidedly one of the reasons for
which housework is shunned to-day.
Business men have evolved a satisfactory and workable plan by which
their employees are neither overworked nor deprived of all legal
holidays, although frequently the work they are engaged in can not be
suspended day or night even for an hour.
It remains for women of the leisure class, and to this class belong all
those who can afford to pay to have their housework done for them, to
adopt a similar plan in their homes.
EXTRA PAY FOR OVERTIME
When the plan for limiting housework to eight hours a day is discussed
for the first time, the following question invariably arises: What is
to be done when anything unusual happens to break the routine of the
regular work, as for instance, when sickness occurs, when friends arrive
unexpectedly, when a dinner party is given?
Sickness, of course, is unavoidable, but as a rule a trained nurse or
an extra household assistant is called in to help. Many times, however,
this is not absolutely necessary, or perhaps the family can not afford
to have outside help, and the extra work caused by sickness usually
falls upon the domestic employee whose hours of labor are more or less
prolonged in consequence. What ought to be done in such an event?
There is but one answer: Work that can not be accomplished within the
regular working hours already agreed upon should be paid for as
"overtime."
When it is a question of work being prolonged beyond the eight hours a
day by the entertaining of friends, one can only say that this ought not
to happen if the housewife planned her working schedule carefully. She
alone is responsible for her social engagements; she alone can make a
schedule that will enable her to have her friends come to luncheon or
dinner without prolonging the day's work beyond the hours agreed upon
between herself and her employees.
When friends arrive unexpectedly, however, or when a dinner party or
a big social function takes place in the home, an eight hour schedule
may be the cause of great inconvenience, unless a previous agreement
has been made to meet just such occasions. It is certain that some
compensation is due to all domestic employees for the extra long hours
of work caused by unusual events in the home life of their employers,
and many ways have been devised already to remunerate them.
In modern social life a custom of long standing still exists which makes
it almost compulsory for this remuneration to come out of the pocket,
not of the hostess, but of her guests. The unfortunate custom of giving
"tips" is not generally criticised very openly, but when viewed in the
light of reason and justice, it seems to be a very poor way of trying to
remove one of the present hardships connected with domestic labor. Why
should the housewife depend upon the generosity of her guests to help
her pay her household employees? She never demurs at the extra expense
entailed in giving luncheons and dinners in her friends' honor, nor in
taking them to places of interest and amusement. Why then should she
object to giving a little more money to her household employees upon
whose work the success of her hospitality so largely depends?
There are many women who entertain extensively, but they never
recompense a household employee for any extra work that may be demanded
from her on that account. They consider themselves fully justified in
exacting extra long hours of work because of the high wages they pay,
especially as it frequently happens that while the work is more on some
days, it is less on others, and they think in consequence that their
employees have no cause for complaint.
It is a mistake, however, to think that an employee who is obliged
to be on duty and has little or nothing to do on one day, is really
compensated for the extra hours of work she has been compelled to give
on other days. A saleswoman who on certain days has no customers or only
a few, is just as much "on duty" as if her work filled all her time, and
it is the same with a domestic employee. Indeed it is generally conceded
to be more irksome to remain idle at one's post than to be actively
engaged in work.
But on the other hand, there are many housewives who feel that they
ought to give their employees more pay for extra work especially when it
is connected with the entertaining of friends, and the following ways of
rewarding them have been tried with more or less success.
One plan that gained favor with several families was to give ten cents
to the cook and ten cents to the waitress every time a guest was invited
to a meal: ten cents for each guest. At the end of a month the ten cent
pieces had amounted to quite a sum of money.
Another plan that was tried in a small family was to give fifty cents to
the cook and fifty cents to each of the two waitresses for every dinner
party that took place, regardless of the number of guests. Still another
plan was to give at the end of the month, a two dollar, five dollar, or
ten dollar bill to an employee who had given many extra hours of
satisfactory work to her employer.
All these plans are good in a certain sense, inasmuch as they show
that women are awakening to the realization that some compensation is
due to household employees for the extra long hours of work frequently
unavoidable in family life. But unfortunately these plans lack
stability, for they depend altogether upon the generosity and kindness
of different employers, instead of upon a just and firmly established
business principle.
And now comes the question: What method of payment for overtime will
produce a permanently satisfactory result?
The only one that appears just and is applicable to all cases is to pay
each employee one and a half times as much per hour for extra work as
for regular work. In this way each employee is paid for overtime in just
proportion to the value of her regular services. For instance, when a
household employee receives $20, $30, or $40 per month, that is to say
$5, $7.50, or $10 per week, for working eight hours a day and six days
a week, she is receiving approximately 10, 15, or 20 cents per hour for
her regular work. By giving her one and one half times as much for extra
work, she ought to receive 15, 22-1/2, or 30 cents per hour for every
hour she works for her employer after the completion of her regular
eight hours' work.
This plan has never failed to bring satisfaction, and it has the
advantage of placing the employer and the employee on an equally
delightful footing of independence. The performance of extra work is no
longer regarded as a matter of obligation on one side, and of concession
on the other, but as a purely business transaction.
Some housewives fear that the regular work would be intentionally
prolonged beyond all measure if it became an established rule to pay
extra for work performed overtime. This could be easily checked,
however, by paying extra only for work that was necessitated by unusual
events in the family life.
In families where only one employee is kept, naturally the occasions for
asking her to work overtime arise more frequently than in families where
there are two or more employees, especially if there be small children
in the family. Yet these occasions need not come very often, if the
housewife bears in mind that even with only one employee, she has eight
hours every day at her own disposal; she ought to plan her outside
engagements accordingly. Her liberty from household cares during
these eight hours can only be gained though by having efficient and
trustworthy assistants in her home, and she can never obtain these
unless she abandons her old fashioned methods of housekeeping. She must
grant to household employees the same rights and privileges given to
business employees; she must apply business principles to housework.
A great power lies in the hands of the modern housewife, a power as yet
only suspected by a few, which, if properly wielded, can raise housework
from its present undignified position to the place it ought to occupy,
and that is in the foremost rank of manual labor for women.