Housekeeping Department

The function of the housekeeping department in a hotel is the housing of guests. It has sole charge of the bedroom floors. The function of the women workers in this department is to clean the bedrooms and corridors, to change the linen on the beds, to dust and sweep, supply fresh towels and soap and care for the baths, private and public. The bulk of this work falls in the daylight hours when guests have risen and gone about their business. In the large transient hotels, however, guests are coming into the hotel and leaving it until midnight. Part of the workers must, therefore, be on hand to attend to the incidental wants of the guests and make up new rooms at night.

The women employed in greatest numbers in the housekeeping department are the chambermaids, who clean rooms and make the beds, the bathmaids, who clean and scrub out the bathrooms and corridors and the special cleaners. Of these, the bathmaids’ and cleaners’ work falls in fairly regular shifts. Bathmaids work a day shift and cleaners, in the big hotels, work a day and a night shift. Chambermaids, on the other hand, have night work distributed among them according to the needs of the establishment.

Bathmaids’ and cleaners’ hours

The work of the bathmaids and the cleaners is, perhaps, the hardest women have to do in hotels. All day long they scrub out wash basins, tubs and toilets, polish brass, and mop up floors on their hands and knees. Their work is of fairly uniform intensity. It is “humiliating work,” as one bathmaid said, and for this reason the higher type of maid refuses to take it. The hours of the bathmaids are, however, the best in the housekeeping department. This has led some chambermaids in spite of prejudice against the work to prefer bathmaids’ jobs. In thirteen hotels in which work was obtained in the housekeeping department bathmaids worked a nine-hour day or less. The hours of work fell between 7.30 and 5 o’clock. In two hotels, they worked 8½-hour days, 7 hotels a 7½-hour day, in 3 hotels a 7-hour day and in one hotel a 6½-hour day.[^[4]] Lunch periods were unstandardized, as most of the bathmaids ate in the hotels.

[4]. The hours given are exclusive of the lunch period. One-half hour has been deducted in computing the daily hour schedules.

The special cleaners worked the same daily hours as bathmaids. In some hotels there was a squad of night cleaners also who worked from 6 P.M. to 12 midnight, and in the largest hotels there was another shift working from 12 midnight until 7 A.M. No information could be secured concerning these night shifts.

The weekly hours for bathmaids in the hotels varied from 45 to 54 hours. In five of the nine hotels for which weekly hours were obtained bathmaids were required to work from 45 to 50 hours a week and in four hotels from 50 to 54 hours a week. The weekly hours for bathmaids are long in spite of a fairly short working day because they work a seven-day week. The Sunday hours are shorter than hours for week days, varying from 5½ to 7 hours. Sunday work for bathmaids seems unnecessary. The guests stay in their rooms late Sunday morning and do not wish to be disturbed by cleaning. Bathmaids are used to clean outmaids’ closets and corridors and to take the places of the chambermaids who have failed to report for Sunday work. Because they have no regular work to do on Sunday, bathmaids highly resent the imposition of Sunday work. As their work is of an especially fatiguing nature they believe they are entitled to one day of rest. “It’s mean to call you in on Sunday and keep you sitting around when you might be home resting or off having a good time,” they would say. In three of the hotels bathmaids were given two days off a month or every other Sunday.

Chambermaids’ Hours

The large majority of workers in the housekeeping department are chambermaids. The hours of work for chambermaids are the most unstandardized of those of any occupation in the hotel. They vary greatly from establishment to establishment. Different maids in the same hotel work different hours, and hours differ for each maid on successive days of the week. This has made it difficult to give a general statement of the working hours of chambermaids.

In transient hotels chambermaids work a daily shift in which they change the linen, dust, and sweep in an assigned number of rooms. This work falls within a fairly regular period. In addition they take turns at being on watch in the morning from 7 o’clock to 8, in the afternoon from 4 to 6 o’clock, and at night from 6 to 12 o’clock, or 6 to 10, according to the establishment. Maids have an irregular lunch period also, except a small minority in a few hotels who were found to take an hour and go home. The workers leave the floor in many hotels when they have finished their daily work often several hours earlier than the leaving time scheduled. On the other hand, they are often kept beyond the scheduled leaving hour because there is a shortage of linen and they must wait for it in order to make up their rooms.

Extra shifts or watches occur in frequencies of from one watch every twentieth night to one watch every morning, afternoon or evening. In two hotels no night watch for the regular chambermaids occurred. A relief watch of maids was added to the staff to work from 6 to 12 o’clock. In one of the hotels this was installed as an economy measure. In several other hotels night watches were made optional and extra pay was received by a maid for each watch taken. Under this system some maids, in order to increase their earnings, might overtax their strength. Night watch in the smaller cities lasted only until 10 o’clock and occurred at less frequent intervals.

When a girl complains of long hours, the housekeeper usually replies that there is a nice short day on Sunday. The maids do not take this as a great consolation, for they regard one full day’s rest in seven as their right. In all but two hotels in which jobs were held, a straight seven-day week was worked by all chambermaids. The Sunday hours were shorter, workers usually leaving at 2 P.M. instead of 4 P.M. In the other two hotels two days off each month were allowed. These days off were most irregularly given, however, at the discretion of the housekeeper. If there was a shortage of maids, there were no days off. One worker in one of these hotels said she had been there two months and had worked every day.

In 12 of the 14 hotels [^[5]] in which jobs were obtained as chambermaids the regular daily shift varied from 6½ hours to 8½ hours, exclusive of the lunch period. The regular weekly shifts varied from 45½ to 59½ hours. But the extra shifts make the weekly hours worked by chambermaids excessively long. The average number of hours worked weekly in “extra watches” varied from none to 21.04 hours. The actual working hours for chambermaids, by which is meant the regular weekly hours plus the average number of extra hours each week, in the 12 hotels, are as follows:

49.38

50.16

50.75

50.94

52.50

54.50

56.70

59.27

60.90

66.54

70.03

In no case is a 48-hour week found, and it can be seen that in over half of the hotels chambermaids worked more than 54 hours.

[5]. Two hotels have been omitted from the analysis of hours because of inadequate information on extra shifts.

The chart on the opposite page shows the weekly hours actually worked by chambermaids in one sample hotel in New York City. Beside her regular hours the chambermaid had the morning watch from 7 to 8 A.M., with time allowed for her to run down and eat her breakfast. The second day there was a long watch from 6 P.M. to 12 P.M., the following day a short afternoon watch from 4 to 6 P.M., and every third afternoon after four o’clock she had to herself.

Hours of linen room workers

Linen room workers worked a long and short day. They usually reported at 8 o’clock and worked until 11 or 12 o’clock one day. They were then off until 6 and worked until 12 midnight. The next day they worked from 12 noon to 6 P.M.

Physical effects of excessive hours of work

In all hotels where “extra watches” were worked the maids felt the strain of the excessive hours. On days on which an extra watch from 6 to 12 was worked, a maid was on her feet from 8 to 4, then with two hours’ respite from 6 to 12, or 14 hours a day, with short intervals off for meals. She came to her work the next day with dragging step and a listless air, complaining that she never got rested. Her habits of life were disturbed by the irregularity of hours for succeeding days. She snatched sleep when she could. After work maids always went to their rooms to rest until supper time. Workers living out frequently kept beds in the hotel on which to snatch sleep. The work is indoors in an overheated hotel. Excessive hours prevent the maids from getting sufficient exercise in the fresh air. It is impossible to keep in good physical condition under such working conditions. The maids age prematurely. “Oh, you think I am an old woman. I am only thirty. You’ll look like me, too, if you stay here long.” Similar statements were made by several of the maids. The bathmaids particularly were a jaded and fatigued group of women workers. The older ones in New York City were bent from constant stooping. Even strong, young Polish girls, who were frequently found working as bathmaids in up-state cities, were so tired out at night that they spent their evenings lying on their beds.

The complaint of maids regarding hours of work was general. In several hotels there had been an organized protest to the manager against a seven-day week. In one hotel, with the help of a union, maids were organized and the night watch was abolished. For the most part, however, complaint took the form of individual grumbling, dissatisfaction, and changing of jobs. One worker greeted a new worker as she came into her bedroom sick after a night watch on a very hot night, “They work you like dogs here, you better not stay.” “I was so tired last night I could have cried,” said another worker. “My feet were all swollen this morning. These night watches will kill me yet.” Many complained of sore feet and varicose veins from continual standing. Of the seven-day week, one young maid said, “You don’t mind so much in the winter time, but in the summer to see everybody going off to the country and you working all day indoors in a hot, stuffy hotel, with never a day to go anywhere or see your family—it’s terrible.”

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. “Just make up the beds with the sheets that’s on ’em. Those people aren’t going out today anyway. Give the rooms a lick and a promise, I say. I’m tired today,” is often heard while the maids are eating lunch. A feeling of resentment against long hours tends to make the workers dissatisfied and careless about their work. All feeling of responsibility for good work is diminished accordingly. In order to mollify maids, housekeepers allow them to leave their stations as soon as they have covered the work on their daily shift. This makes for hastily finished work and a further unstandardized day. It means that, instead of all maids getting a regular number of hours off duty, clever and unscrupulous individuals steal time at the expense of others. The effect of long hours on attendance is marked. Maids frequently take days off without pay. Some make a practice of turning up for Sunday work several times a month only. And after the continued strain of some months of night watches and seven-day week work, maids feel they “need a vacation and a change” and leave their jobs.

Effect of long hours on recreation

Maids who live in a hotel go out little unless they are very young. After working hours they lie on their beds and sleep or gossip. When they do leave the hotel it is either to go to mass or to find some exciting form of amusement. The younger girls made “dates” casually with guests and other men to go to the movies and Coney Island. Girls who are more backward had often been nowhere outside the hotel, except to church. A Danish girl, who was working in a large New York City hotel, said she knew no one in New York City and had not been anywhere except to go to church with another maid one Sunday and she wouldn’t go there again because they all laughed at her when she took off her hat. She said she was too tired to go to the movies at night because these night watches were “fierce”—she was just tired all the time. She worked in one of the hotels which had an extra watch every day. Another worker, a young Polish bathmaid, complained, “I am too tired to ever go home and see my people any more at night. I used to go every other night and I get awful lonesome for them now, but I just can’t get cleaned up and dress.” This girl was sixteen and had been working as a bathmaid for three months. Another young bathmaid said, “I am too tired to ever go to dances. I just want to rest at night. I can’t stand it anyway, it’s too hard.”