More than half of the women workers in hotels are employed in the housekeeping department. 40.2% of the women in hotels are chambermaids, 10% cleaners or bathmaids, 2% linen room girls and 3.8% housekeepers.[[2]] Housekeepers have been excluded from this study because of the small percentage and the difficulty in securing information. The study of the housekeeping department, therefore, is confined to chambermaids, cleaners, bathmaids and linen room workers. The investigators worked in 14 jobs in the housekeeping department as chambermaid, bathmaid and linen room worker.
[2]. Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia. Wages of Women in Hotels and Restaurants. 1919. P. 10.
In the kitchen, cooks and assistant cooks are excluded on the ground of number. The information in the kitchen, dining room and pantry departments is, therefore, confined to waitresses and pantry workers. Two jobs were obtained in the kitchen as pantry worker. No work could be obtained as a waitress. All information regarding waitresses was secured from interviews with workers.
Labor Recruiting
During the war the hotels of New York City found that advertisements, private fee-charging employment agencies and bulletins posted at the employees’ entrance, were bringing in inadequate returns. The New York City Hotel Men’s Association, therefore, opened its own free employment bureau, which served as a clearing house for all jobs open in hotels belonging to the Association in New York City. One hotel company opened its own employment bureau to recruit workers for the five hotels under its management. This proved to be a temporary expedient only, to be used at a time when the hotels were in need of workers. When unemployment, due to the industrial depression, grew, the free employment bureaus were discontinued. This was at a time when the workers most needed them. The basis for the closing of the employment bureaus was voiced by one employment manager, “We don’t need to do that now; we have a long line at the door every day for every job.”
At present there is a return to the use of the advertisement and private employment agency. The old, unintelligent method of hiring the first worker in line after a casual interview, whether or not more suitable candidates may be available, is again the practice. In all but five of the hotels in which work was applied for the timekeeper and the head of the department interviewed the worker. It is true that some of the larger hotels in New York City under the control of big hotel corporations have developed employment departments. The employment managers have no labor policy, however. They are little more than clerks. They receive calls from the heads of departments and refer workers to them as they apply. No central record is kept. No job specifications have been worked out and no record is kept of the workers who leave. Even where there are employment managers the actual hiring is done by the heads of departments whose attitude is only too often, “These girls won’t stay long anyway, so it doesn’t much matter who is hired.”
The following example illustrates how unintelligently an interview can be carried on by a housekeeper who was apparently an excellent manager of her department in other respects. The bad psychology and entire lack of employment technique in the interview is obvious. The interview took place in a first class hotel of a first class city in New York State. The girl waited for three-quarters of an hour outside the linen room. Finally, the housekeeper, a robust, emphatic person, came up the stairs. The girl took the initiative: