Diagram 7.—Ages of Women Restaurant Workers Employed Over 54 Hours Weekly.
Diagram 8.—Nationality of Women Restaurant Workers Employed Over 54 Hours Weekly.
The Long-Day Workers.
Who are the workers that bear the brunt of the long hours in restaurants? They are for the most part the younger women and girls—those who are most likely to be injured by overstrain. They are the very ones whom it is to society’s interest to protect most carefully since by their strength is measured the strength of the next generation. Less than thirty per cent. of all workers exceeding fifty-four hours a week are over thirty years of age. ([See Diagram 7.])
Foreign-born women also make up the greater part of this group. ([See Diagram 8.]) They do not know how to protect themselves from employers’ unreasonable demands, they must have work and they are not trained for anything except unskilled labor. They will work any number of hours exacted by the employer whatever the cost, until exhaustion renders them unfit for labor of any kind.
WAGES.
Weekly Wages.
The wage of restaurant workers is of immediate interest to everyone who enters a restaurant. You not only pay for your food, but your tip helps to pay the waitress’s salary. It is upon this source of income that she depends for the greater part of her earnings. Any study of wages in this branch of industry must take into consideration not only that tips form a large part of the income of waitresses but that the majority of women get all their meals at the restaurant, or the equivalent of $3.00 a week in addition to actual wages.[7] Professor Streightoff has fixed upon $9.00 a week as the minimum amount upon which a girl can live independently in New York City.[8] Eighty-seven per cent of all women restaurant workers are being paid less than $9.00, but when food and tips are estimated and added, the proportion receiving less than a living wage is thirty-one per cent. While it is true therefore that the majority of workers in restaurants are earning enough to support themselves, it is a matter for grave concern that so large a number of women are being forced below the lowest point at which they can maintain health and decency.
Moreover this $9.00 a week minimum does not allow for saving against illness, dentist’s bills, unemployment or any other emergency. Taking $10.00 a week as the least upon which a girl can live and save, we find that forty-nine per cent. of these women are receiving in actual wages or their equivalent less than this amount. A few restaurant workers live at their place of employment, thus receiving lodging as well as board, but as this is true of only four per cent., the proportion is too small to affect appreciably the wage scale as a whole.