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.

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:

1paid at least$8but less than$9per week9" "9" "10" "11" "10" "11" "9" "11" "12" "11" "12" "13" "2" "13" "14" "2" "14" "15" "0" "15" "16" "1[6]" "16" "17" "

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.

Wages including lodging but no meals

In six hotels at which jobs were applied for, lodging was offered, but no meals. The following cash wages were offered to chambermaids and bathmaids in addition to lodging:

1paid at least$8but less than$9per week3" "9" "10" "1" "10" "11" "1" "11" "12" "

No information was obtained for pantry workers or waitresses in this group.

The Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia, in extending its minimum wage of $16.50 to hotel workers who were living-in, attempted to set a money value on the board and lodging furnished by the hotel. Because there was no way of determining its actual cost to the hotel management, the minimum cost of room and board for a self-supporting woman in the District of Columbia was taken. The figure used is $9 a week for board and lodging; two-thirds or $6 for board, and one-third or $3 for lodging.[7]$13.50 is, therefore, the minimum on which a woman can maintain herself while living-in in a hotel but taking her meals outside. None of the hotels in New York State, furnishing lodging in addition to a cash wage, paid this minimum.

7.Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia. Wages of Women in Hotels and Restaurants in the District of Columbia. P. 16.

Wages including three meals and no lodging

In 8 hotels which paid the workers their wage, plus three meals a day, the following cash wages were paid to chambermaids and bathmaids:

1paid at least$6but less than$7per week0" "7" "8" "1" "8" "9" "5" "9" "10" "1[8]" "10" "11" "

8.The actual wage paid in this group was $10.00.

No information was obtained for pantry workers or waitresses in this group.

If the $16.50 minimum wage of the District of Columbia is taken, and $6 to cover the cost of three meals deducted, the minimum wage for this group would be $10.50. In no case was this amount received.

Wages including board and lodging

The largest New York City hotels and the largest hotelsin first class cities require maids to live in and prefer that some of the pantry workers and waitresses should do so. In these hotels chambermaids and bathmaids living-in have the following wage rates:

1paid at least$4but less than$5per week7" "5" "6" "17" "6" "7" "1" "7" "8" "2" "8" "9" "1" "9" "10" "

If $9 for board and lodging is deducted from the $16.50 minimum wage of the District of Columbia, $7.50 is left as the minimum wage for this group of workers. When the wages of chambermaids living-in are taken, it will be noted that only four out of twenty-nine hotels pay this wage or more, and that over half pay between $6 and $7 per week.

Waitresses in one hotel in New York City where board and room are furnished received $6.92 a week. Pantry workers, who are a skilled class, received one of the highest wage rates found for women workers in hotels. They have, however, no access to tips. In one hotel they received $50 a month with board and lodging, or $11.53 a week, and in another hotel $55 a month with board and lodging, or $12.29 a week. In two hotels kitchen workers received $30 a month whether they lived in or out.

Tips, or the giving of gratuities by the patrons of the hotel to workers who serve them, is the most unstandardized part of the earnings of the worker. Because the giving of tips depends not only on the whim of the public but upon the general prosperity of the country and the individual prosperity of the patron, it admits of no standardization. Tipping seems incongruous in that, by its own definition, the functionof the hotel is service. It amounts to a direct payment by the public of a part of the worker’s wage.

It should be remembered that tips are received by chambermaids and waitresses only. There are large numbers of bathmaids, cleaners, pantry and kitchen help who have no access to tips.

The disadvantages of tipping

The practice of tipping is defended by both workers and managers, although it operates to the disadvantage of both. The management defends tipping on the ground that the public wishes to tip. “He feels the servant has given something extra and unexpected and he wants to pay something for it—he tips.”[9]This manager indirectly admits, however, that tipping is an imposition on the patron when he assures his guests that no discourtesy will be shown a guest who does not tip. If managers were candid they might admit that they wish the public to tip because it enables them to pay their employees a lower wage rate.

9.Statler Service Codes. P. 7.

Patrons are frequently annoyed by the persistency of workers in procuring tips. The guest who tips will get service at the expense of the guest who doesn’t—maids are frank to admit this—and there is consequently dissatisfaction of one class of guests. A guest in a hotel has come to feel that the hotel rate is but one item in the expense of staying there and naturally he resents it.

Between the workers and their superiors disputes arise over the distribution of tips. Dissatisfaction and lack of cooperation result which obstruct the smooth functioning of departments. Chambermaids designate desk clerks as “sneaking devils,” because they think the desk clerk takes their tips. They hate the bell-boys because they think they get more than their share of tips. Waitresses, especially banquet waitresses, have a constant grudge against head waiters. They think they hold back a large share of tips from them. Maids resent it when housekeepers give them transient corridorswhere tips are poor, and waitresses accuse head waiters of putting them on poor stations.

Tips are a disadvantage to the worker because she can never know what her weekly earnings are to be and plan her expenses accordingly. But she defends tipping because she feels that this is the only part of her earnings over which she has control. She knows her wage rate will be low, but she may get big tips through her own efforts. The uncertainty of the amount of tips has a romantic fascination for the maid or waitress. She thinks that by an ingratiating manner to the guest, by staying overtime to be on the spot when a guest leaves, by her persistence, and by chance of securing a good floor or station she will get tipped. Moreover, she has heard many stories of good tips. Maids and waitresses boast of the good tips they receive and remain silent when they get none. Each maid hopes that she will be the lucky one. But she comes to realize reluctantly that she cannot control tips. She may not get a good floor if she is a chambermaid but one on which transients stop for one night and are never seen. In modern hotels the “regulars” stop on the higher floors. She may not obtain favor with the housekeeper or the desk clerk or the head waiter. She may be at lunch or supper when a guest leaves. She may be growing old and the guest will not be pleased by her manner. The lot of the older chambermaid who is in many respects more efficient than the younger one, is especially hard. She does not get tips and she ceases to expect them. This discrimination against the experienced worker illustrates the unfairness of tips as a part of the workers’ wage. Tips depend not so much on service as on a pleasing appearance and manner. Advice to a new maid is to “fix yourself up” and “don’t be bashful. The ones who get tips are those who stick around and sass ’em back and make them notice you.” There is a question as to how many of the tips received are legitimate tips. The danger to a young girl, who ingratiates herself with the guests to get tips, is only too evident. The girls often said to those who got no tips, “Oh, you’re too straight to make good tips. Make up to them.”

The dissatisfaction of the maid who gets low tips grows and finally she leaves her job. An employment manager of alarge group of hotels in New York City said, “From my experience as employment manager, I am thoroughly convinced that the tipping system is more directly responsible for labor turnover in hotels than any other one thing. An employee will leave one hotel to go to another where exactly the same wages are paid if she thinks the chance for tips is better.”

The relation of tipping to wages

Tipping, as a factor in the workers’ earnings, has been generally overestimated. A study, made by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics during the war period when tipping was comparatively high, shows that the average tip for a chambermaid in Buffalo was 40¢ a day and the highest was only 71¢. In New York City the average tip received by the chambermaids was 49¢ and the highest tip 83¢.[10]The Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia in 1919 says of tipping: “Of the 48 maids from whom data on this point were obtained, 8 stated that they received no tips, 7 stated the amount to be very little and the average for those giving actual figures was $1.22 per week. It seems evident that the tips received by maids were not sufficient to make any appreciable addition to their wages.”[11]

10.Monthly Labor Review, September 1919. Wages and Hours of Hotel and Restaurant Employees. P. 193.

11.Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia. Wages of Women in Hotels and Restaurants. 1919. P. 5.

Certainly in New York State, according to the data gathered from this investigation, tipping for chambermaids is negligible. It is difficult to get an accurate estimate from maids as to their average weekly tips. They remember a $5 tip they once got but not how much they get each week. In one of the largest New York hotels, one maid says she gets $5 once in a while, then nothing for weeks at a time. One had had $3 in the three months she had worked in the hotel. Another made 50 cents in 5 days. The investigators, while working in hotels, received less than $1 a week in New York City hotels and in the other hotels of New York State only an occasional small tip of from 15 to 25 cents. It may have been due in part to the fact that as new maids they workedon corridors for transients and not for permanent guests. Their experience, however, was borne out by statements of other maids. There was constant complaint that tips were low. In up-state cities maids said, “You never expect tips from travelling men any more. Only when a play actress or somebody like that comes from New York you get a tip.” In New York City also there was complaint that “houses are no good for tips now” and “no rich people come any more.”

Waitresses, the few whom it was possible to interview, received much larger tips than maids. It is more customary to tip waitresses and they are always on the spot to receive their tips. Waitresses interviewed received from $3 to $5 a day in tips. They form, however, a minority of women hotel workers and their position in the industry is precarious, due to the antagonism of the men waiters.

That a hotel can be run without tips has been demonstrated by a women’s hotel in Washington, D. C., in which a minimum wage of $16.50 is paid. A group of restaurants in New York City realizing the unfairness of the tipping system, has attempted a standardization of tips. The patron pays a 10% service charge with his bill, which per cent goes to the waiter at the end of the week. This seems entirely satisfactory to the worker in that it makes for a certainty of tips, but the pernicious principle underlying the tipping system persists.

The other uncertain element in a woman hotel worker’s earnings is the board and lodging offered as a part of her wage. When a girl takes a job she does not see her room and has no notion of what the food is like. If she is an experienced worker she does not expect much.

Living-in a disadvantage to women with dependents

All women cannot make use of the board and lodging offered in a hotel. It depends upon the conditions of their personal life. Married women or women with dependents are barred. So, in some hotels, where the same wage is offered to workers living in or out, married women and womenwith children are forced to accept the cash wage without the board and lodging. Often this worked great hardship to the women whose husbands were out of work. It was difficult, too, for the woman with dependents for whom she had to maintain a home. A number of widows with children were forced to accept the low cash wage. Finding that this wage would not support them, many of them put their children in institutions and lived in. They felt, on the whole, that this was a highly unsatisfactory solution. With night work and a seven-day week, maids could rarely see their children.

Money value placed upon food and lodging by the hotels

The cost of board and room to employees, furnished as it is upon a large scale, is without doubt much less than the cost of the same if purchased retail by the employee. In order to judge of the value of board and lodging which is offered by the hotel, it is necessary to have some standards by which to measure it. Hotels have made no attempt to put a money value on lodging and board. The only way an estimate can be made of the cost to hotels is by the difference in wages paid to employees living in and those living out in the same establishment. Even this means is scarcely accurate because, in some cases, the same wage is paid to both and a varying number of meals is eaten by the employees.

A few instances can be given, however. In three hotels where one group of employees have meals and lodging and where the group living out took no meals in the hotel, there was a difference in the wage between the two groups. The difference which may be said to bethe value placed by the hotels on food and lodgingwas, in the three hotels, $2.30, $3.04 and $3.46, respectively.

In seven hotels where one group lived in and one group roomed out but ate in, the wage difference illustratesthe value set by the hotel upon lodging. The difference in wages varied from $1 a week to $2.31 a week.

Living on a hotel wage

In the hotels of up-state cities Polish maids are beginning to replace the American workers. One employment manager said, “We like these foreigners. They don’t expect to spend so much money, and they’ll put up with more.” Again and again the complaint was heard that the hotel wages were insufficient to live on, even when food and lodging were included. Many of the workers found it necessary to buy food in addition to that provided by the hotel in order to keep their health. Those who did not live in the hotels were unable, because of the irregular hour schedules, to take advantage of the cheaper rates of boarding houses for meals. In most cases they had no family connections on which they could depend. They were forced, therefore, to buy their meals at restaurant prices or else to cook them themselves. Workers, whose wage included three meals but no lodging, were not always able to take advantage of the meals offered. So it happened that waitresses and pantry maids, when their day began in the afternoon, often had only one meal in the hotel. Again, if they had family responsibilities, they could often not reach the hotel in time for breakfast. If a maid’s day ended early she lost time by staying for supper in the hotel. The result is that many workers eat the noon meal only in the hotel and provide the other meals at their own expense when they are rooming out.

Most of the hotel workers prefer to live out. “You like a room by yourself which you know is clean. These hotel rooms have so many girls in them, and they’re all kinds.” But those who do live out experience the difficulty of paying rent out of their small wage. One girl, who worked in a New York hotel for $35 a month and meals, had to pay $25 a month for her room. “Of course,” she said, “I can’t live on that.”

A worker in a Rochester hotel, a widow with three children all living at home, earned $10.50 a week with no board or lodging. She said her eldest son was a printer who was out on strike. “He gets $19 a week strike pay,” she said, “while I get $10.50 a week for working 7 days. Of course my pay doesn’t make me independent. It just helps along. It doesn’t go far when you have to buy your own shoes and shoes for a12-year-old boy.” One woman, who received $50 a month and lived out, worked all day in the hotel and then packed candy every evening from 6 to 10 o’clock to make enough money to live on. She had a family to support. Another intelligent American woman, earning $10 a week, was keeping her sick husband in one room for which she paid $8 a month. She had one bed and a table. The rest of the furniture was packing boxes. She had to prepare all the meals in her spare time.

Aside from food and rent, clothing is the largest item in the hotel workers’ budget. Both a uniform for work and street clothes are needed. The uniform was furnished by the hotel in only the largest New York City hotels. When charged to the worker it cost about $4.00. She must also furnish, if a chambermaid or waitress, a black waist and skirt for night work. This waist usually costs from $2.00 to $2.50 and the skirt at least $5.00. The waitress needs a number of clean white shirtwaists. Shoes are an important item to both chambermaids and waitresses who are on their feet all their working hours and must be neatly and comfortably shod. Workers complained that they need shoes every three months and that they cost at least $6 a pair.

After the necessary uniforms and a meagre supply of street clothing are paid for, there is little left from the wage for incidentals and to meet emergencies. Doctors and dentists are rarely consulted except in several large hotels where doctors and dentists are employed by the hotel and where workers can have attention at reduced rates. Women workers neglected their teeth through poverty and ignorance. The older bathmaids and maids frequently had only a few snags left. An oculist was an unheard-of expense. Few of the older workers wore glasses even when they had the greatest difficulty in seeing. Some used magnifying glasses to read the newspapers, and others could not read print at all because of the condition of their eyes. Magazines and newspapers were a luxury. Workers never bought them and read only what was given them by guests. Books were never seen. The workers seemed to have neither the energy nor the money for any kind of self-improvement. The younger girls couldfrequently find someone to take them out for amusement, but for the older workers there was no recreation at all. They complained that they could save nothing for their old age.

How many guests, who pay from $4.50 to $9 a day for their rooms, know thatless than 6¢of this goes in cash to the chambermaid for her services? In one hotel where these rates are paid, chambermaids receive $300 a year or, allowing for two days off per month and a week’s vacation, a little less than 90¢ for a working day. This is for cleaning fifteen rooms. And yet we are told it is for service that we pay so dearly in hotels!

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