For all the comrades who ever waited a table, worked a deep-fryer, or washed a dish.

‘Conditions of the Hotel and Restaurant Workers of Chicago’ by E.E.H. from Solidarity. Vol. 7 No. 327. April 15, 1916.

Among the working men and women of Chicago there is an industry known as the Hotel and Restaurant. Workers or “The Culinary Trade” and exploitation is felt to such an extent that mouth cannot say nor pen record the awful injustice done this branch of the working class.

Without an organization, craft or industrial, these workers are subject to the iron and merciless hand of the Hotel, or Restaurant owner or his subordinates.

Such things as charging double prices for dishes dropped and broken, for waiters eating from the dishes brought back from hotel dining rooms, docking help for coming a few minutes late–these are only a few of the petty injustices.

The food the average hotel waiter gets is not fit to give a dog. And as the wages are low and half the tips they make are taken away from them, they cannot afford to purchase good food in the hotel they work in, so they must obtain it the best way they can.

The Hotel and Restaurant Workers are ofttimes compelled to work fourteen and fifteen hours per day straight run, when there is a shortage of help, but are paid no overtime.

The mess halls in many first- and second-class hotels and restaurants are filthy, ill ventilated, damp, and poorly lighted. Waiters and bus boys have actually taken sick at the mess hall table, due to the bad food and filthy surroundings.

The houseman, chamber maids and porters are treated about the same. Houseman and porters receive from $20 to $30; some places board and some places no board. Chambermaids receive from $15 to $20 and room. Advertisements appear in Chicago Papers–Tribune, Daily News and Herald as follows:

Houseman wanted, must be strong, neat appearing and sober, $15 per month and board and room. Wanted Chambermaids; young and intelligent, $17 per month.

Can girls live on such wages? They are not expected to. In some cases if a girl has a good face and figure she is a drawing card in the eyes of some second-class hotels and rooming house managers.

It is said that certain hotel managers are noted for their eye in picking out and employing good looking chambermaids.

The restaurant worker is a little better off, but so little it is almost unnoticeable. In one small group of small group of cheap restaurants called “Gus Place” in Chicago, where meals, if you wish to call them such, are served from 10c to 25c, waiters are paid $1.25 for a 12-hour workday: cooks the same, and dishwashers and other kitchen help, male $1 per day and female $5 per week. These places are filthy and come nowhere near the requirements of the Illinois State Food Laws, as simple as they are in regard to the food and the things it is prepared in, and the place it is consumed in.

The walls and cooking utensils are thick with old grease and the smell issuing from these places is enough to knock a man down. The help in these places sometimes send out to a butcher shop and get their own meant to cook and pay for it out of their own pockets.

The hours the working girl is required to work are the same as the working man, in absolute contradiction of the law pertaining to working girls. It is the same as if there were no laws for these places, or for the safety of the public. Such things as meat bones, potatoes, butter and vegetables are saved from the plates of customers and made over into beef stews and hash, and served again in the dining room and to the help.

In the better class houses in Chicago the food, utensils and surroundings are cleaner and better. But the help is not treated much better. In Thompson’s, Messinger’s, Anderson’s and Weegham’s a continuous spy system is maintained to see that the workers do not eat such goodies as pies, custards, and porterhouse steaks, or anything above a small steak and pork and beans. If they do, they are charged the same price as the customers or discharged. Because pies and porterhouse steaks are not good for a common working man’s stomach.

Thompson’s, where the spy-system is felt most, have a set of rules. 32 in number, a few of them are:

1. No employee who has worked here before will be welcomed by the company as a future customer.
2. All employees must be on duty fifteen minutes before the hour of their shift starts.
3. No unnecessary talking to customers must take place.
4. You are allowed to eat at meal time only,

Employment sharks for hotels and restaurants do a rushing business. Employers help them along by refusing to employ help in any other way, except in case of dire need. Fees are as high as five and ten dollars.

Such are the injustices heaped upon the Hotel and Restaurant Workers.

Fellow Workers, you can overcome this, but only by organizing.

Organize! Organize right! Organize industrially! Organize so that when anyone of you strike you can carry the whole hotel with you and then it must be a sure victory.

The Industrial Workers of the World is an organization ready and willing to take you in so you can fight for and obtain better wages, better conditions and shorter hours. You cannot do it individually,

We are right at your door. Get a card today. Do not wait. until tomorrow. Read our pamphlets and books on Industrial Unionism that you may be better equipped to fight in the battle of your class.

The I.W.W. is International and no working man or woman is too great or too humble not to join this fearless, fighting, real Working Class Organization.

Cooks, Walters, Porters, Bakers and Bakers’ Helpers, Countermen, Waitresses, Bus Boys, Dishwashers, Pantrymen, Housemen; Butlers, Chambermaids, ORGANIZE!

For further information apply to W.D. Haywood Room 307 No. 164 West Washington St., or G.B. Stowe, 9888 W. Madison St., 2nd floor.

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/1916/v7-w327-apr-15-1916-solidarity.pdf