THE WORKER.
An outstanding feature of restaurant work is the presence in this occupation of a very large proportion of girls and young women. One-fourth of all the workers are under 21, and two-thirds under 30 years of age. (See Diagram 1). There are several reasons to account for this fact.
A certain amount of excitement attaches to the work of a restaurant waitress which appeals to young girls. She sees and talks to a great many people; she likes the noise and bustle and cheerful atmosphere of the dining room. Also, the employer prefers young and pretty girls as waitresses, especially where the customers are mostly men. They help to make his place attractive and popular. One waitress remarked, “When the girls get to looking bad, they are laid off and someone else is put in their place.”
As might be expected, restaurant cooks are a somewhat older set of women than the waitresses, not quite one-half being under 30 years. Their work requires experience and the ability to think and plan. Considering the nature and demands of the work, it is startling to find that twenty per cent. of their number are girls not yet 21 years old.
Over seventy-five per cent. of the kitchen girls and other helpers[3]are under 30, and nearly half under 21. This is the youngest group. Their work needs no skill or previous training, the chief requirement being physical strength.
The youth of these restaurant workers gives rise to two distinct dangers, a physical danger and a moral one. Restaurant work necessarily involves many hours of standing and walking, lifting and carrying heavy weights. This is an unavoidable feature, but it is of the utmost importance that it be not ignored. Medical authorities have pointed out the serious results that follow the strain of continued standing and over-work of young girls. Dr. Harris states that in occupations which require suchlifting and carrying and such long hours of standing “there is a definite hazard to the child-bearing capacity of women. This is of vital consequence to society as a whole.”
Diagram 1.—Ages of Women Employed in Restaurants by Occupation.
Diagram 1.—Ages of Women Employed in Restaurants by Occupation.
The moral danger of the work is largely confined to waitresses. Because of their position, they are peculiarly exposed to the attentions of men customers. For this very reason, the Baltimore Vice Commission recommends that only older and more experienced women be employed in this capacity, while in Norway the law sets a minimum age limit for waitresses in public places.
If the restaurant worker is to resist the strain of the work and the temptations to which she is exposed, hours and conditions must be so adjusted as to prevent all overtaxing of her strength and elasticity.
Diagram 2.—Nationality of Women Restaurant Workers.
Diagram 2.—Nationality of Women Restaurant Workers.
The majority of restaurant workers are foreigners. Less than one-third are American-born, and of these a great many have foreign-born parents and live among members of their own race, so that they can hardly be classed as Americans. The largest single group is made up of Austro-Hungarians. (See Diagram 2). The demand for cheap, unskilled labor in this occupation calls for the kind of service which these girls and others of the European peasant class can give. The outdoor life in the fields of their native land fits them for the hard labor required in a restaurant kitchen. They do not remain fit long, however. After a year or two of this work, much of their sturdiness is lost, color and brightness are gone from their faces, and they have become pale and listless. A curiously dull, passive look is characteristic of many of them.
Living as they do among their own people these young peasants have no opportunity to absorb American standards and customs. Their ignorance makes it easy for employers to exploit them, demanding hours of labor and paying wages to which no American girl would submit. An employment agent said: “My ’phone rings day and night—all want peasant girls for kitchen helpers because they are the only kind that will stand such long hours.” Attempts to organize restaurant workers in New York State have never succeeded. The Secretary of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees’ International Alliance, speaking of their unsuccessful efforts alongthis line in New York City in 1915, says, “This is not the first attempt to organize the girls. We have had a similar experience before,—in fact have had three experiences in that city and none of them a bit more encouraging than the present one.” This is largely due to the presence of so great a number of young foreign girls in this occupation. They are not in a position to unite and work for their own protection. The only channel through which that protection can come is the law.
Diagram 3.—Living Condition of Women Employed in Restaurants.Diagram 4.—Marital Condition of Women Employed in Restaurants.
Diagram 3.—Living Condition of Women Employed in Restaurants.
Diagram 4.—Marital Condition of Women Employed in Restaurants.
While the greater number of restaurant workers are unmarried, it is rather surprising to find so large a proportion of married women in the work. (See Diagram 4.) This is easily explained, however, by the fact that many of them are “one-meal” girls, that is, they are employed only for the rush hour at noon. In this way they can earn a little extra money while their husbands are at work, either as “pin-money” for themselves, or to help toward the support of the children.
The majority of restaurant employees live with their family or relatives (See Diagram 3), but this does not mean that they are not entirely self-dependent. As large a proportion of a girl’s wage goes into the family exchequer as she would have to pay for board and lodging elsewhere. The financial advantage of living at home appears chiefly in giving her a place of refuge when she is out of a job.
Restaurant workers are a tenement house population. A few, to be sure, can afford comfortable little apartments of their own, but as a whole their lot falls within the congested tenement districts of the city. Confusion, over-crowding, dirt, lack of sunlight, air and privacy, and unwholesome surroundings are only too common in their homes. The janitor of an East Side tenement house said: “A little while ago down in Third Street there were twenty-three girls sleeping in two rooms. They’d put their mattresses down on the floor at night and pilethem on top of each other in the day time. Most of them were kitchen hands at ⸺’s,” naming a well-known chain of restaurants.
The low standards of the European peasant class from which restaurant workers are largely recruited, drag down all standards. No other result is possible under present conditions. They live—but how? Low wages, miserably long hours, no opportunity to fit themselves for their new surroundings—this is what we offer these young peasant girls who come to America confidently expecting better things than they have left behind.