APPENDIX III.
RESTAURANT WORK FROM A WORKER’S POINT OF VIEW.
“A nine hour law would be a very good thing. I think long hours are very bad for women in restaurants. Most of them have varicose veins and flat feet, and a large number suffer from stomach trouble. Look at me, I am strong and healthy, but when I’m through at night, I am just all in. It’s a dreadful nervous strain.
“Girls have to live on tips. If you tell the boss you can’t make any, he says you are no good and discharges you. You have to put up with it or starve. The majority of girls—the better class of waitresses—if they could get a good living would be glad to do without tips. Of course it would be a revolution and would require a lot of agitation.
“Girls in restaurant work have greater temptations than most girls. Advances are always made, especially in certain districts. A great number go wrong because of so many advances.
“Nothing has ever been done for restaurant workers. The bosses all seem to think we are a lot of crooks. Waitresses think the same of them. Girls don’t change their jobs so often because they like to. They get fired, mostly because the manager just wants to, or the work is too hard and the place miserable.
“There should be a nine-hour day, and two meals with half an hour allowed for each. Hours should be arranged consecutively. The best regulation would be to have girls work in shifts, going on at eight and coming off at five, or going on at eleven and working until eight. The same arrangement could be made for the kitchen help.”