Dining Room, Kitchen and Pantry Departments
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.
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.
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.
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.