LONDON TIPPING SEASON

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1930, Page 6

LONDON TIPPING SEASON

MINIMUM: WAGES FOR WAITERS

LONDON, Aug. 35

-Miss Margaret Bondfield (Minister for Labour) is endeavouring to apply the Trade Boards Act, 1909 and 1918, to the catering trade. This means that a Trade Board would be set up to; fix statutory minimum wages and hours, with overtime rates and the crux of the matter would he the tipping system. The situation bristles with difficulties, owing to the many grades existing in the catering trade from the “good pull up for carmen” type of dining-room to the higii-class. restaurant. A large employer of labour, when interviewed, expressed the view that if a minimum rate of wages were fixed, any increased cost to the employer would be passed on to the customer. In the Central London district he knew of waiters who received less than 10s a week in wages, and these men had to depend upon “tips” for a living. A waiter in a good-class restaurant usually earned 30k in wages and probably, with tips, made about £5 a week. An official of the International Geneva Association, whose members belong to tfie catering trade, said that the wages question was the crux of the whole problem. A lost of the waiters in the large AVest End restaurants had to depend upon tips for a living, and he knew of cases where waiters paid a guinea a week for the privilege of serving customers, from whom they received substantial gratuities. 'Some of them were paid from 10s to £1 a week as wages. In the small restaurants and dining-rooms waiters rarely received more than £2 a week, which with tips would not average more than £2 10s or £3 a week.

A waitress in one city tea-shop said; “My wages are 28s (id a week, with a shilling off for insurance, and I make another four or five shillings a week in commissions. One day we work 10 hours and the next day 6 hours. On our long day we get breakfast, lunch, tea, and some supper. I have to pay 12s a week for a room.”

Elsewhere, a waitress said, “I he wages don’t count, but most of us do very well here, I reckon J. make £3 10s a week, but that’s because some of the customers like to talk to the girls.”