Girls in restaurant work do not get vacations with pay except in very rare instances. One well-known New York firm having tea-rooms in various parts of the city, is to be congratulated on the fact that it does give its waitresses a vacation with pay. A few of the married women, or those who have families to care for them, can afford to take time out of the year’s work for a rest. But when a girl is not working, it is for the most part a matter of stern necessity and inevitably means a time of struggle and suffering.
Restaurants do not labor under the difficulties of seasonal employment. We should expect to find a steadiness in this occupation which the facts do not bear out. It is therefore evident that the instability of the work and constant shifting is due to the unsatisfactory nature of the employment itself. The large proportion of workers out of employment for one month or more a year (20%) is striking evidence of this fact.
Diagram 12.—Weekly Wages of Women Employed in Restaurants according to Length of Time in this Occupation.
Lack of Opportunity in Restaurant Work.
Restaurant work is a “blind alley” trade. There is little opportunity for development or advancement. What training is necessary can be acquired in a few weeks, and the only position to which a girl can look forward is that of head waitress. There are no recognized degrees of skill in any part of the work connected with a restaurant. On the contrary, the tendency is in the direction of wearing girls out by overstrain rather than of giving them a chance. The girls who have been in the work the shortest time get higher pay than those who have been in it longest. Sixty-five per cent. of those who had been working less than a year were getting $6.00 or more a week, while only fifty-five per cent. of those who had been working over ten years were receiving as much. ([See Diagram 12.]) The woman who remains in restaurant work for more than a few years gradually loses her strength and ability, and can get a position only with an inferior type of restaurant, where the necessity for having a job forces her to accept whatever wage is offered her.
SUMMARY OF STUDY.
The law has declared illegal the employment of women in mercantile establishments longer than fifty-four hours or six days in any one week, on the ground that a working day of more than nine hours, or a working week of more than six days, is prejudicial to the health of the worker and therefore to the welfare of society. It has also declared illegal the employment of these women at night and it safeguards their interests further by insisting upon a definite period for the mid-day meal. Fifty-eight per cent. (58%) of the women employed in restaurants exceed the fifty-four hour limit, twenty per cent. (20%) work twelve hours a day and four per cent. (4%) are employed at night. One-third do not have one day of rest in seven, and the majority are not allowed time off for their meals. Do not these women also need the protection of the law?