‘Hotel Workers Battling in New York Against all the Forces of Reaction’ by Frank Pease from Solidarity. Vol. 4 No. 5. January 25, 1913.

I.W.W. Influence Predominating.

(Special to Solidarity.) New York, Jan. 17. The International Hotel Workers’ Union, an organization of hotel and restaurant workers with a membership of 25,000, has been on strike in the city of New York for the past week. The strike was called to protest against certain conditions that prevail in this industry. These conditions are: insufficient pay, long hours, poor food, unsanitary conditions where these workers eat, where their clothes are stored during work hours, toilet, etc., and the intervention of the employment shark between the workers and their jobs.

The strikers have formulated some of their demands as follows:

1. The abolition of the tipping system for waiters, and the establishment of a fixed weekly wage scale to be not less than twenty dollars ($20) per week;

2. The establishment of an eighthour day for all workers in the hotel and restaurant industry;

3. The abolition of the practice of engaging employes for hotels and restaurants through subsidized employment agencies, and the establishment in their place of employment bureaus in which the hotel and restaurant workers shall have equal control with the hotel and restaurant employers.

The following members of the I.W.W. have been on the job of assisting the I.H.W.U. to win their strike through I.W.W. methods: Gurley Flynn, Carlo Tresca, Joseph Ettor, William Trautmann, W. Egerman and A. Giovannitti. Thus far their efforts to enthuse a spirit of solidarity amongst the strikers have been crowned with great success. Large mass meetings Have been held every evening, and some of the best and most convincing industrial union propaganda that has ever been given out in so short a time in this city has resulted. French, German, Italian, Greek, English and Bohemian speakers have all spoken to the same point, namely: the necessity of an industrial form of organization if the workers would win their battles against the employing class.

Up to date the strike has been marked by the usual violence on the part of the police and the thugs specially engaged by the hotel and restaurant owners. Delegates have been slugged, pickets assaulted, thrown into jail or fined. District Attorney Whitman gave a press interview in reply to a communication sent him that the extreme violence of the police and thugs could have but one result, that the strikers would react from it by returning violence for violence, by saying the first striker who did so would be jailed.

Twenty-one hotels and restaurants have agreed to the demands of the strikers thus far. Many of the first class hotels and restaurants still hold out. A General Strike motion placed before a large meeting of the membership was approved of almost unanimously. This vote was not a vote of those still on strike only, but was also made by those who had returned to work under the new conditions promised by such employers as had signed up, thus showing that the solidarity of the union members is of a good quality. Date for the calling of this General Strike has not as yet been announced.

No small opposition to our organisers was experienced at first from the numerous “jobites.” But the I.W.W. policy of placing all strike issues before the rank and file has given the rank and file confidence in the integrity and efficiency of such policies and organisers.

Acting in sympathy with their Fellow Workers in New York, and being subjected to practically the same conditions as the latter, other cities where the I.H.W.U. have locals have also gone on strike. These are Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady and Albany, totaling between ten and twelve thousand hotel and restaurant workers on strike at this writing.

The general public of New York City is informed that their sympathy with the strikers is not alone obligated because of the deplorable conditions under which the strikers work, but that there is still another side to the issue. Affidavits on file at the union headquarters expose a condition of filth and graft in connection with the preparation and quality of food stuffs that is almost unbelievable. Vermin-infested food, tainted food highly spiced before serving to conceal its condition, dirty and unhygienic conditions where dishes are washed, filthy toilets open to passageways and kitchens, unclean beer pipes that endanger the public health are the conditions testified to by these affidavits.

On the whole the strike outlook is very favorable. The prevailing sentiment is toward the I.W.W. The so-called “foreign element” involved appears to hold the clearest conceptions of Industrial Unionism, to be the most steadfast, and to be ready to make the I.H.W.U. a real I.W.W. fighting organization. The cooks and general kitchen help are the most reliable, the waiters the least. This is very promising, as the cooks hold the most strategic position in regard to the practice of sabotage. It is said that this latter has already been effectively used in many places. Sabotage has been explained and advocated, the strikers have responded to it with much appreciation. Every I.W.W. member who is foot free should get into this fight.

The most widely read of I.W.W. newspapers, Solidarity was published by the Industrial Workers of the World from 1909 until 1917. First produced in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and born during the McKees Rocks strike, Solidarity later moved to Cleveland, Ohio until 1917 then spent its last months in Chicago. With a circulation of around 12,000 and a readership many times that, Solidarity was instrumental in defining the Wobbly world-view at the height of their influence in the working class. It was edited over its life by A.M. Stirton, H.A. Goff, Ben H. Williams, Ralph Chaplin who also provided much of the paper’s color, and others. Like nearly all the left press it fell victim to federal repression in 1917.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/solidarity-iww/1913/v04n05-w161-jan-25-1913-solidarity.pdf