LONDON HOTELS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1938, Page 9

LONDON HOTELS

CONDITIONS BEHIND THE SCENES. Many waiters and other hotel workers gave up a half-holiday to protest at a London meeting against the appalling conditions “behind the scenes” in many hotels. There were the charges they made: — In many hotels girl workers are herded in dormitories so crowded that to make their beds one bed has to be pulled out into the corridor to make room to. move the others. Each time they leave or enter the hotel they are searched, usually by a man. Hundreds of seaside hotels expect their waiters to work 100 hours a week, with no holidays. In many boarding houses women and girls are getting only 12s 6d a week, or at the most 15s for 90 hours’ work. Special cheap meat is bought for the staff in many hotels, and much of the food provided for them is uneatable. The meeting also exposed the misappropriation of waiters’ tips under the “tronic system,” by which all tips are pooled. In one case the hotel management, it was said, had taken the money for floral decorations. A charter to improve conditions, which the meeting discussed, will deal with the question of a minimum wage for all categories •of hotel workers, maximum working hours not exceeding 56, leisure and paid holidays, staff meals, and accommodation.