Consumers' League of New York City

“ HOW TO START A COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISE IN NEW YORK STATE
In starting a cooperative enterprise two things must be considered: first, the kind of business to go into and, second, the method of organization. Any group desiring to engage in a cooperative venture should first of all, through a committee and by consultation with experts, determine what type of enterprise will serve them most effectively. Where competition is unusually keen and profit margins are low, cooperation is less likely to be of service than where the opposite is the case. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The private promoter with his selfish interests rigs up a scheme to look like cooperation, but the actual purpose is to provide a channel whereby thousands of dollars will flow from the pockets of the working people into those of the promoter. Inasmuch as New York State has a law which forbids the use of the word cooperation by any concern which is not organized under the Cooperative Law, such promoters have to be uncommonly shrewd. ”

“ This was the question asked by a woman working twelve hours a day in a restaurant. What must we tell her? What excuse have we to offer for excluding her from the protection the law gives to women working in factories and mercantile establishments? That we have safeguarded women in these fields of employment from overwork proves that we know the dangers of overwork, that long hours interpreted in terms of human life mean exhaustion, disease, immorality, pauperism and a weaker generation to follow our own. ”

“ Sometimes she meets absolute discouragement from 13the 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. ”

“ Girls in restaurant work do not get vacations with pay except in very rare instances. One well-known New York firm having tea-rooms in various parts of the city, is to be congratulated on the fact that it does give its waitresses a vacation with pay. A few of the married women, or those who have families to care for them, can afford to take time out of the year’s work for a rest. But when a girl is not working, it is for the most part a matter of stern necessity and inevitably means a time of struggle and suffering.
Restaurants do not labor under the difficulties of seasonal employment. ”

“ Around the first nucleus has grown a staff of intelligent young men and women, usually college bred, who are devoting all their brains and energy to see that this cooperative cafeteria succeeds. They seem to find a peculiar satisfaction in knowing that their efforts will not enrich a few individuals at the expense of patron and employee alike, but will increase the common welfare of the community itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most of the girls quite frankly admit making “dates” with strange men. In one restaurant a woman was pointed out in incredulous admiration by the other waitresses. “Her husband has been dead four years, and she hasn’t gone out with a man yet,” they said. These “dates” are made with no thought on the part of the girl beyond getting the good time which she cannot afford herself, but the outcome is often a tragedy. The restaurants in one city of the state forbid unnecessary conversation between waitress and customer because conditions resulting from the practice became so flagrant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The majority of restaurants employ men for night duty. It is evident, therefore, that the employment of women is not essential to the convenience and comfort of either restaurant owners or customers.
In nearly every branch of industry the working week is six days long. It is universally conceded that there must be one day in the seven for rest and relaxation if men and women are to give their best service. With restaurant workers, thirty-three per cent. of whom have no day of rest in seven, the need for such a time is particularly great because of the long working day. ”

“ Like other cooperatives, the cafeteria has found the need for expert and trained workers in place of the hard-pressed volunteer. Much of the work on education and cooperative organization is carried on by trained members of the staff. This interest of the paid employees in things other than mere technical efficiency contributes much to that friendly spirit which makes Our Cooperative Cafeteria unique among the restaurants of New York. ”

“ The dissatisfaction of the maid who gets low tips grows and finally she leaves her job. An employment manager of a 34large 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. ”

“ Usually a man is employed to carry away the empty dishes, but the waitresses must bring the trays loaded with food.” [5]
Besides the cost to endurance, nerves are at constant tension for hurry is the remorseless rule. A waitress must not only remember a multitude of orders and fill them quickly, but she must keep her temper under the exactions of the most trying customer. The cook must keep her head amid the confusion and noise of a hot, crowded kitchen. The kitchen girl must be everywhere at once with a helping hand and the dish-washer’s very job depends upon her quickness. ”

“ In this particular business the margin of profit is so small that only the most skillful and economical management can bring success. A recent survey of all the private grocery stores in one city showed that the average annual profit was only $400 per grocer.
There is no longer any excuse for cooperatives to follow the blind into the pit. There are many sources of information and advice available to cooperatives that should be fully utilized before any money is spent in a cooperative enterprise that promises only failure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Eighty-seven per cent of all women restaurant workers are being paid less than $9.00, but when food and tips are estimated and added, the proportion receiving less than a living wage is thirty-one per cent. While it is true therefore that the majority of workers in restaurants are earning enough to support themselves, it is a matter for grave concern that so large a number of women are being forced below the lowest point at which they can maintain health and decency. ”

“ Tipping 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. ”

“ When the public is perfectly willing to contribute part of a waitress’s wage, why should not the employer take advantage of this fact and pay her less? That is surely to be expected and is almost universally the case. ”

“ The day of a restaurant worker does not begin with her arrival at the restaurant nor end when she leaves. Half of these women live at a distance, taking thirty minutes or more to reach their place of employment. When this extra hour spent in going to and from work is added to a twelve hour day, it is a factor to be reckoned with. It means cutting off an already insufficient night’s rest, and, when a girl cannot afford carfare, a weary walk home after being on her feet all day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence night work is, in a word, against nature. This injury to health is all the greater because sleep lost at night by working women is never fully made up by day. For, in the first place, sleep in the day time is not equal in recuperative power to sleep at night.... Moreover, quiet and privacy for sleep by day is almost impossible to secure. Upon returning home in the middle of the night or at dawn the workers can snatch at most only a few hours’ rest.”
Often a woman will have one week of night work alternating with a week of work in the day time. ”

“ Maids resent it when housekeepers give them transient corridors 33where 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And not only is this free day important on the score of health, but it is also the time for recreation and the strengthening of family ties. For the girl who has no leisure, no time for real relaxation and play, there is only a starved and empty existence. ”