Living-in
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 women with 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 be the value placed by the hotels on food and lodging was, 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 illustrates the 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 a 12-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 could frequently 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 that less 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!