In view of the training required, and of the nature of the work performed, the salaries paid in Honolulu are not high; but they are high when compared with those paid in mainland cities where the field is overcrowded with girls unequipped with the proper qualifications but eager to make for themselves a position which is considered practically at the top of the wage-earners’ scale from a social point of view.
SHOPS AND STORES
The five dry-goods shops employ an aggregate of about seventy-five saleswomen, made up of an equal number of Americans and Portuguese, with a sprinkling of Hawaiians and Germans.
The rooms are large, no artificial light is used, and there are no basement salesrooms.
The working day commences at 7:45 in the morning and closes at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. There is an hour’s allowance for lunch.
Three of the shops close at noon on Saturday for four months of the year, and two at 1 o’clock during June, July and August. One shop has reopened from 7 to 9 o’clock Saturday evenings, but the proprietor says it has not paid and that he intends discontinuing the practice the first of the year. There are no fines or penalties except censure or dismissal for incompetence. There are rules, however, to insure courtesy to customers and systematic methods of salesmanship. The lowest salary paid beginners is $2.50. They are advanced with reasonable rapidity, one shop raising wages from $2.50 to $5.00 for a year’s service in one instance; and from $3.50 to $7.50 in seven months in another. One manager employs none but experienced help and has no saleswoman earning less than $9.00. Another has a minimum wage of $5.00, raising it to $6.00 after a month’s trial. He says if a girl does not earn a $6.00 rate within a month he does not wish to employ her.
A list of sixty-nine salaries verified as correct by employers and employes is as follows:
| WEEKLY. | |
|---|---|
| 1 at | $ 3.50 |
| 1 at | 4.00 |
| 5 at | 5.00 |
| 2 at | 6.00 |
| 5 at | 7.00 |
| 1 at | 7.50 |
| 10 at | 8.00 |
| 2 at | 9.00 |
| 8 at | 10.00 |
| 1 at | 11.00 |
| 5 at | 12.00 |
| 3 at | 12.50 |
| 9 at | 15.00 |
| 4 at | 20.00 |
| 1 at | 25.00 |
| 1 at | 40.00 |
| MONTHLY. | |
| 2 at | $ 75.00 |
| 1 at | 85.00 |
| 3 at | 100.00 |
| 3 at | 125.00 |
Two weeks’ vacation with pay is given by three shops; and a week with pay by the other two.
A number of the saleswomen are married. One who left her position when she married went back to it after a long illness of her husband left them in straitened circumstances, and she has remained at work ever since. She has no children and says she “feels safer for her old age.” Most of the girls say simply they are working to earn a living, and they “like this way of doing it.”