STRONG CRITICISM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1081, 21 March 1911, Page 9

STRONG CRITICISM.

A NEW AWARD. EFFECT-OX RESTAURANT TRADE. The effect of the new Cooks' one! Waiters' Award upon the hotel and restaurant' trade in Wellington cannot .vet be estimated with precision, for some employers are still in ignorance as to the exact bearing of the new regulations upon the establishments they conduct. The award is a comprehensive measure, which supersedes a number of prior awards, some of them of long standing. Necessarily . this introduces a measure of complication, and obstructs a definite verdict by the employers upon the terms of the ■ latest award. Already, however, there .'are mutterings of approaching discontent. A reporter who visited n number of restaurants and similar . establishments yesterday .heard, many, unfiiittoriiig refer: ences to the. activity of labour and the growing pressure ot awards, and of the conditions, they impose. . -In the main, comments of tliis nature were heard only in the smaller establishments visited. At one of tha larger private hotels, the reporter was informed that those in control had not yet perused tho conditions of the new award. In any cn:<i they would not mind an increase in wages very much if. they could secure a.steady supply nf reliable labour', which seemed, at the present time, .impossible. The manager ot a large city business, which includes a tea-room employing many .waitresses, stated cheerfully that his firm was unaffected by tho new conditions. ■ Proprietors of small eating-houses who were called upon had a very different story to-tell. One small restaurant at which the reporter called is typical of a class; It is an establishment at which a meal may be obtained for the modest sum of sixpence. To'an opening question tho proprietor replied at once that the effect of the new award would be to drive him out of business. "In six months," he said, "there won't be a sixpenny diningroom left in Wellington." As hours and wages were to be regulated, he went on, it would be impossible to carry on' an establishment like his except by working two shifts and this the business would not stand. There was "no sense" about the new award. For instanco, one of two kitchenmen would have to be paid 335. per week. The wages of the other would stand at 255. Yet both did exactly the same work! "I had rather get out of business than be bothered like this," he continued, "and many people will think the same way. ■ You might as well keep a benevolent institution at once. I reckon this is more of a benevolent institution than any poor-house in Wellington." The wife of tho proprietor fully, endorsed'his view of the position. She remarked that with her husband she worked hard in , the restaurant. They had half a dozen employees and her husband did all the cooking. Yet they could do nothing; more than pay their way and keep out of debt. Certainly they-did not make good wages. Employees were constantly leaving and that without giving notice. "You cannot speak a word to them," she said. "They must 'boss' the place of they -will leave. Sometimes they leave in the middle of dinner and we can't stop them. Of course, if we -want to discharge a servant we have to give notice. It is not fair at all. We have to -work day and night ■ and we get next to nothing. It would bo ■ far better to work for someone else." i A lady who conducts a small restaurant i and tea-room wr.s equally frank in her i condemnation of tho new award. Had l she known how severe were the conditions ) bearing on employers in this.business, she ) stated, she would never have attempted t to start in it. The attempt to build up a business was almost, hopeless uniter the 1- conditions prevailing, and. if they became 1- appreciably more severe-it would become 3- absolutely impossible..-. Coming to .details, J she stated that the new; award,-was un- » fair in ■ the distinctions it created. Tho j Wages of kitchen girls vrero raised, -while 3 the payment of waitresses, who had to f keep up appearances, remained unaltered, 1.. ..Under, ,thq ,copk in. this a 'particular establishment-.-■wnild , oh»te • to ibs paid «G2 155., instead of 15s. as at o present. Of two kitchen girls who were 3 employed, both at 225. fid. per week, one 6 would have to receive ]ss. under tho 0 new award, and the other .-C'l 7s. Gd. It made no difference apparently that both 1 girls carried out exactly tho same duties, o It is onito impossible, asserted the prot- prietreis, to increase the business, under e these conditions, or to put any extra d girls on. . „ ' el Another provision of the new award to o which strong exception is taken is that r granting preferenco to unionists. >•-. > "I think it rather- hard that I: should t not be nermitted to employ-'the girls I t 'want," said one nroprietress. "Wo rely t- on getting the right kind of girls, and >- I know good waitresses who do not cave o to join unions. They (the unions) do n everything except pay tlio wages," she if concluded bitterly.