A look at the conditions of telephone operators (‘Hello Girls’ in the vernacular back then) at Seattle’s Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co where work, literally, followed them home.

‘Hello Girls in the West’ by John M. Foss from Solidarity. Vol. 5 No. 226. May 9, 1914.

Degrading Slavery of Telephone Operators Shown By Conditions In Seattle

Most of the articles in our papers on the “girl question” part of the class struggle have referred to eastern workers, and our sisters in that part never read much about their own sex in the West. For that reason we will give them a chance to know the real situation about them, and how well they are treated in the supposed-to-be golden West. Seattle this time is the place, and the scene is the PACIFIC TELEPHONE-TELEGRAPH CO.

This institution employs a thousand girls, or more, in eleven branch offices or stations, with the exception of one or two male workers. This place is another recruiting office for the redlight district, as the wages paid to its employes are small, making the girls pinch to get along. The company requires the girls to look neat, comb their hair in a certain style, with dress of a certain length–all on ONE DOLLAR PER DAY, with an eight-hour shift, and sometimes longer without extra pay.

If a girl is sent to a branch office to work in the place of some other girl sick or discharged, she must pay he own carfare. Some girls travel a long distance from their homes to their work, paying carfare, but must pay again if they are sent out to some other station.

The girls while at work are not allowed to speak to one another. Mum is the word, for fear the girls might talk to each other about the large pay they don’t get. If a girl talks about her conditions to one of her fellow workers, and the stool hears it, she is at once reported to the chief operator, and canned. Not only that, the company has stools watching the girls at dances, while off duty, and reporting them if they speak about the company at all. There have been several reports to me along this line, and in most cases the girls were insulted.

This slave den with its hired suckers certainly makes life miserable for the workers. They must take all kinds of slurs and insinuations from the customers, and are not allowed to talk a back no matter what has been said to the operator. They sit so close together while at work, that in the summer the fumes from their tired bodies kill all the fresh air in the place.) Most of the girls look very thin. They are tired, overworked, and abused by the overseers looking down their collars all day long. The stool pigeon watches them off duty, and the overseers on duty, including the stool, so it’s some job, believe me.

The telephone company requires a girl to work in the above conditions for three months, before getting any advance in wages. For three months the girls must pay BOARD, ROOM, WASHING and other expenses to maintain herself, and look neat for the company on ONE DOLLAR per day. In some cases the girls have a mother or someone, to take care of, and must still look neat on one lonely dollar.

The most that a girl operator can get in wages from this company, I understand, is $1.70 a day, which requires at least two years steady work, provided, however, you have a stand in with the company. Even at this rate, I fail to understand how a girl can live and meet the expenses of herself and others, if any, and still look neat for the company. The company dictates how the girl shall look, but doesn’t pay the wages to foot the bill. Another complaint of the girls whose shift expires at night, in the late hours, is that men are following them from their work. The company gives no protection. Payday is every two weeks, and one week’s pay is held back on a thousand workers, which the company gets interest from, though the money held back belongs to the workers. The company runs some kind of a lunch room, and girls spend their few pennies with the intention of getting something good to eat, but the food is so adulterated and poor that most of the girls have stomach trouble. The latest stand of the company regarding the customers of this lunch room, was that they had to wash their own dishes when they got through, and still pay for the junk at double prices. The girls began to kick, so the company took notice.

The girls get three days off a month, in winter. But in summer they only get two, because the company don’t want too large a payroll, by putting more. operators at work and thereby reducing the army of unemployed.

In case a girl wishes relief from her board during the hour of her shift, a special is called, and the operator is allowed five minutes from the time she leaves, till her return. If she remains away longer than five minutes, she must explain to the supervisor in charge, in order to hold her job at one dollar per day, even if it was none of the company’s business. The company is too poor to furnish enough chairs. so some of the girls must stand on their feet at the boards. Such chairs as there are, are very uncomfortable. As for the state law. requiring the companies to work their girls only six days per week, they don’t abide by that law, as it is in favor of the operator and not the company, so the latter doesn’t care damn about the law.

One who is not posted might think that a job as telephone operator must be a very good job. Well, it isn’t now, BUT CAN BE MADE SO, by the operators getting into ONE BIG UNION, and together changing the conditions. The telephone operators are the most abused workers in the public service industry and the only remedy I can see is for them to unite and stand together, in a class union, regardless of creed, color, nationality. and force the companies, not only in Seattle, but in all the branch offices of this company in other localities to respect their operators and change conditions to what they should be.

The customers who in the past and at present insult and abuse the operators during their work can be taught a lesson in respect, by the operators all organizing in one solid union, and if necessary tying up the offices of this company. Customers and company alike will then learn that the “Hello Girl” is human, and not a beast of burden.

Join the I.W.W. girls, and I am sure the company will change these conditions. Act together. An injury to one operator is an injury to all the operators. likewise the whole working class. Workers of the world, unite. Subscribe for this paper. 25 cents for three months at your homes.

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/1914/v05-w226-may-09-1914-solidarity.pdf