That a hotel can be run without tips has been demonstrated by a women’s hotel in Washington, D. C., in which a minimum wage of $16.50 is paid. A group of restaurants in New York City realizing the unfairness of the tipping system, has attempted a standardization of tips. The patron pays a 10% service charge with his bill, which per cent goes to the waiter at the end of the week. This seems entirely satisfactory to the worker in that it makes for a certainty of tips, but the pernicious principle underlying the tipping system persists.
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.