Shorter hours have been brought about in factories by the voluntary action of manufacturers, who recognize the inefficiency of over-worked men and women; by concerted action of the workers, who have united to fight for their own protection; and by legal enactment, proving that the people of New York State are alive to the dangers of overwork. Some restaurant managers realize the waste and harm of too long hours and arrange their employees’ time accordingly; most of them do not. Women restaurant workers in New York State have never been successfully organized; they cannot protect themselves. They have no legal redress for overwork; the law has neglected them. In the course of this investigation, a girl of twenty was found working one hundred and twenty-two hours a week—longer than the law allows factory employees to work in two weeks. Yet this is within the law. Although restaurants differ from stores and factories in keeping open more hours a day, and sometimes for the whole twenty-four, a system of shifts would do away with the scandalously long hours to which thousands of girls and women are bound.
Diagram 5.—Weekly Hours of Labor of Women Employed in Restaurants.
That restaurant work is at best a great drain upon the physical strength and nervous force of the worker is evident. Standing, walking, lifting and carrying heavy weights is unavoidable. The report on restaurants made by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics says: “There was much complaint among the waitresses that the work was very hard and they could stand it but a few years. A number of the girls interviewed had worked as three meal girls until their health was broken; then they took positions as one meal girls and barely made a living. Carrying the heavy trays and the constant standing and walking cause ill health. Usually a man is employed to carry away the empty dishes, but the waitresses must bring the trays loaded with food.”[5]
Besides the cost to endurance, nerves are at constant tension for hurry is the remorseless rule. A waitress must not only remember a multitude of orders and fill them quickly, but she must keep her temper under the exactions of the most trying customer. The cook must keep her head amid the confusion and noise of a hot, crowded kitchen. The kitchen girl must be everywhere at once with a helping hand and the dish-washer’s very job depends upon her quickness. One of this latter group said that she washes seven thousand articles in an hour and a half. A waitress, when asked the effect of the work upon her, answered, “Sore feet and a devilish mean disposition.” A man restaurant worker speaking of kitchen girls remarked, “It’s no work for a woman. They have to lift heavy pots full of vegetables and fill in all the gaps. A man has some endurance, but a woman can’t stand it more than nine hours a day.”
Many kinds of work are difficult and taxing in their performance, but if the working day is not prolonged beyond a certain point, and there is a sufficient period of rest, such work is not necessarily injurious to the health of the worker. If this point is passed, health is impaired.
The Day of a Restaurant Worker.
The day of a restaurant worker does not begin with her arrival at the restaurant nor end when she leaves. Half of these women live at a distance, taking thirty minutes or more to reach their place of employment. When this extra hour spent in going to and from work is added to a twelve hour day, it is a factor to be reckoned with. It means cutting off an already insufficient night’s rest, and, when a girl cannot afford carfare, a weary walk home after being on her feet all day. Nor is this all. Only a few of the best-paid waitresses can afford to pay for the laundering of their aprons and uniforms. Consequently this must be done by the girl herself, adding another burden to a load already too heavy.