Wonderful. A Halloween revolt of Buffalo’s hotel workers as they parade, led by a band playing the ‘Marseillaise’, from establishment to establishment calling out for workers to join International Hotel Workers’ Union No. 9.

‘Masters Call Their Police to Help Beat Hotelworkers’ from The Buffalo Socialist. Vol. 1 No. 23. November 9, 1912.

Chief Regan Orders Workers to Refrain from Parades, but Doesn’t Interfere with Labor-Skinner’s Processions; Strikers Stand Firmly Together and Hotel-Keepers are Furious at Loss of Profits.

With the Marseillaise, song of international solidarity of the working class upon their lips, stern resolve in their hearts and the light of victory radiating from their faces, the hotel workers of Buffalo, stepped into the arena as a full-fledged industrial union on Hollowe’en night. Hereafter, they propose to make an injury to one the concern of all and fight the masters of the bread for their rights–not as individual atoms which can be crushed one at a time by the masters–but as Local No. 9 of the International Hotel Workers’ Union.

Panic reigned supreme in the hang-outs of the rich. Hallowe’en banquets had been arranged at some of the hotels, and with the first toot of the whistle announcing the strike, the waiters, cooks, pantry employees, bus boys and others dropped their towels and dishes and trays, and marched from the Iroquois, the Lenox, the Touraine, the Statler and the Lafayette, leaving the spangled guests to their astonishment at this strange spectacle of the united working class, the better paid head waiters marching shoulder-to-shoulder with the busboys and the ill-nourished underlings.

Managers Are Frantic.

The hotel managers were frantic. The vision of thousands of dollars slipping away from them drove some of them to desperate tricks to get the despised workers back. Where a few hours before, the workers could not have gotten more than a kick of contempt or a mocking sneer from their bosses, they now became the “idols” of their employers–to hear the employers talk. Automobiles were sent out to get those who, it was thought, might be willing to betray their fellow workers, and stealthy offers of bribes to betray the union were freely made. To the credit of the workers, be it said that they never wavered in their allegiance.

Shoulder to shoulder they marched from their union hall, 52 West Eagle Street, the Socialist headquarters, in a hastily organized parade, 500 strong and led by Scinta’s band. Parading four abreast, they stretched in a solid mass from the Iroquois hotel to the City Hall, two solid blocks long.

Scabs Join Parade.

With the revolutionary music of the band ringing in their ears, quite a number of the remaining employees, ashamed of being caught scabbing upon their fellow workers, rushed from the hotels and joined their fellow workers in the ranks. It was not a strike in the old-fashioned sense of the word. It was a revolt of men and women who had been ground down until they could stand no more.

When the hotel-keepers saw that it was useless to try to wheedle, bribe or cajole their former victims into returning to the slops and tyranny, they tried other measures. The hotel keepers have a good many tricks up their sleeves which they hoped to match against the solidarity of the workers.

They began with the newspapers. The reporters were called in from the capitalist newspapers to publish stories about how the service was “unimpaired” at the Iroquois–when the dining room was so dark that you could cut the darkness with a knife! The capitalist newspaper owners realize that their interests are the same as the hotel-keepers. They do not know when their own slaves will revolt, if they see that the hotel-workers are successful. So they gladly offered their columns to the hotel-keepers. The result was a hodgepodge of misinformation, trying to show that the bosses didn’t even miss the workers, when, as a matter of fact, they just managed to keep up an appearance of doing business by paying an exorbitant price to the strike breakers who consented to scab.

That was not enough. Telling lies about the strikers might fool the public, but it couldn’t fool the hotel workers themselves, and of course, the necessary thing was to get the hotel workers back to their slops and abuse.

Call in Police.

So they played another card. They called in the police. Chief Regan forbade the workers to parade. They didn’t forbid the Progressive Party to parade, because the Progressive Party is composed of little labor-skinners. But the police were told by the hotel-keepers that if the workers were allowed to parade it might “hurt their business.” Chief Regan, like all other police appointed by the Capitalist parties, promptly passed the word along that the workers have no constitutional rights, and that they would not be permitted to rouse the few remaining workers at the hotels with their revolutionary music and their enthusiastic processions.

The hope of the masters was that they could split up the workers, by not allowing them to appear in a parade together, and in this way break the strike for the hotel-keepers. Rights had nothing to do with it. The master class never did care very much about rights–except the “right” of the master class to skin the worker out of the very last nickel. As this issue of the Buffalo Socialist goes to press, the workers are holding firmly together, and the masters are at their wits end to force their slaves back to work without giving them clean, sanitary conditions which they demand. It costs money to save working people from getting tuberculosis, if you have to give them clean towels, sanitary lockers, clean dishes to eat from, etc.

Ask for Clean Food.

Just a glance at the demands of the workers is enough to make every man who loves justice hot under the collar. The idea of men and women being forced to strike for a clean plate to eat from is in itself a blot upon all society. But when all of the forces in society–except the united working class–is brought to bear to force them back to the old unsanitary conditions, every man or woman with a drop of red blood is ready to fight with them for the right to live–and to live decently. All of the capitalist political parties were lined up on the side of the bosses. The Republicans, Democrats and Bull Moose alike united to help force them back. The Socialist party on the other hand, gave the workers every assistance. No Socialist cared whether the hotel employees were voters or not. In fact, a great majority of them are not voters, some of them being from Europe, and some being women–but they were members of the working class fighting for their rights–and that was enough for the Socialist Party. The hotel workers were given the use of the Socialist hall for their meetings and the Socialist party members enthusiastically helped with the organization. Nobody was asked how he was going to vote–or whether he would vote at all, for that matter.

Women Shame Scabs.

A large number of the strikers are women, and they are just as enthusiastic as the men, if not more so. The sight of girls and women marching bravely in the parades should have been enough to make any scab who is helping to betray the workers, throw down his apron and come out to join in, even though he might be too cowardly to join at the start.

The meetings of the union in Franklin Hall were enthusiastic and gave splendid promise of ultimate victory. The newspapers have printed much rot about the hotels being empty “because people are going home to vote,” which everybody spotted as a fake. They were empty because there were no slaves to wait on them.

Here are the demands of the International Hotel Workers’ Union upon the Buffalo hotels. Will anybody but the enemies of the working class say that they are not perfectly fair and just?

The Workers’ Demands

INTERNATIONAL HOTEL WORKERS’ LOCAL UNION NO. 9.

The following are the working conditions and terms of employment that this union has adopted for its members in the City of Buffalo, N.Y.:

CONDITIONS.

All places of employment shall be kept in a clean and sanitary condition.

A sufficiently equipped wash room shall be provided by the employer, with soap and clean individual towels for every worker in the kitchen and pantry department.

The employer shall provide individual lockers for all workers.

No worker shall be required to purchase any working uniforms from his employer, or from firms designated by the employer.

The food supplied to all workers shall be wholesome and served in clean dishes and under sanitary conditions, and in a room of sufficient size to allow each worker to sit at a table whilst partaking of his food.

All wages and compensation shall be paid in full at least semi-monthly.

There shall be no fines imposed upon any worker whatever.

In the employment of new help, preference shall be given to union members, and no union member shall be discriminated against in the laying off of help.

Kitchen and Pantry Department.

All workers in the kitchen and pantry departments shall be employed not more than six days in any one week, without any lengthening of the present hours of labor per day, or any reduction of wages.

All cooks shall receive fifty cents per hour for all work performed outside of the regular watch of the department, and all other workers in the kitchen and pantry department shall receive twenty-five cents per hour for all work performed outside of the regular watch of the department.

All kitchens and pantries shall be properly ventilated and kept in sanitary condition.

Dining Room Department.

All workers, including cashiers, waiters’ captains and omnibusses shall have one full day off in every two weeks. All waiters taken from their regular station of a la carte service during meal hours for special occasions or parties shall receive one dollar extra for each meal.

All waiters shall receive fifty cents an hour for all work performed outside of regular watches.

All omnibusses shall receive twenty-five cents per hour for all work performed outside of regular watches. Waiters shall receive not less than thirty dollars per month wages each. Omnibusses shall receive not less than twenty-five dollars per month wages each.

All existing satisfactory conditions not herein before prescribed shall remain unchanged.

The Buffalo Socialist was a weekly published in Buffalo New York by the Buffalo Socialist Publishing Company from 1911-1915 and aligned with the Socialist Party of America. Edited by Max Sherover, the company also produced a weekly women’s newspaper, New Age, from 1915.

For PDF of issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/buffalo-socialist/v1n23-nov-09-1912-Buf-Soc.pdf