Part 3

During the war the hotels of New York City found that advertisements, private fee-charging employment agencies and bulletins posted at the employees’ entrance, were bringing in inadequate returns. The New York City Hotel Men’s Association, therefore, opened its own free employment bureau, which served as a clearing house for all jobs open in hotels belonging to the Association in New York City. One hotel company opened its own employment bureau to recruit workers for the five hotels under its management. This proved to be a temporary expedient only, to be used at a time when the hotels were in need of workers. When unemployment, due to the industrial depression, grew, the free employment bureaus were discontinued. This was at a time when the workers most needed them. The basis for the closing of the employment bureaus was voiced by one employment manager, “We don’t need to do that now; we have a long line at the door every day for every job.”

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At present there is a return to the use of the advertisement and private employment agency. The old, unintelligent method of hiring the first worker in line after a casual interview, whether or not more suitable candidates may be available, is again the practice. In all but five of the hotels in which work was applied for the timekeeper and the head of the department interviewed the worker. It is true that some of the larger hotels in New York City under the control of big hotel corporations have developed employment departments. The employment managers have no labor policy, however. They are little more than clerks. They receive calls from the heads of departments and refer workers to them as they apply. No central record is kept. No job specifications have been worked out and no record is kept of the workers who leave. Even where there are employment managers the actual hiring is done by the heads of departments whose attitude is only too often, “These girls won’t stay long anyway, so it doesn’t much matter who is hired.”

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The following example illustrates how unintelligently an interview can be carried on by a housekeeper who was apparently an excellent manager of her department in other respects. The bad psychology and entire lack of employment technique in the interview is obvious. The interview took place in a first class hotel of a first class city in New York State. The girl waited for three-quarters of an hour outside the linen room. Finally, the housekeeper, a robust, emphatic person, came up the stairs. The girl took the initiative:

“Are you the housekeeper?”

“Yes,” in a forbidding tone.

“Do you need any chambermaids?” She gave the girl an appraising look. She seemed to suspend judgment temporarily.

“Why, yes,” she replied ungraciously, “I do need a steady girl. Are you a floater?”

“No, I’m not a floater,” was the quick reply suggested to the girl. The housekeeper looked skeptical, but went on.

“Where’ve you worked?”

“—— in Albany.”

“Oh,” and she registered faint satisfaction, “that’s the same management as this hotel,” then, hardening again, “and did you get tired of that?”

“Oh, no,” replied the candidate, quick to get her cue, “I liked it. I had to leave when we moved away from there.” The housekeeper was mollified.

“You live here now?”

“Yes, I’m goin’ to. I ain’t got any people. I come from Lake George,” showing she was a floater after all.

“You sure you ain’t a floater and you’ll come Sundays, every Sunday and take your night watches?” suggesting to the girl that she will expect her to be skipping Sunday and watches. “Well, wages is $10.50 a week, live out, hours 8-3 with night watch every 20th night from 6 to 11 P.M. When can you start?”

“Tomorrow.”

“All right, now don’t go back on me, will you?” implying that the girls usually do.

Then, as an afterthought, “What’s your name?”

“Minnie ——, ma’am.”

“All right, Minnie, 8 o’clock tomorrow. Now don’t you go back on me, mind!”

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Now that the hotels’ employment agency is no longer open, a girl setting out to look for a job in a New York hotel first looks over the “Help Wanted” column in the New York World. There she may find advertisements such as these:

Wanted: Chambermaid, with hotel experience, call before 10 A.M. Hotel ——; Live in.

Wanted: Waitress, young girl, call before 10 A.M. Hotel ——.

Details are seldom given regarding wages or hours. If she is experienced she has a notion as to which are “good houses” so she rates the hotels in her mind and starts out early Monday morning to apply to them for a job.

Failing to find advertisements in the paper—and she does fail very often, for the labor supply in hotels is abundant—she makes the rounds of hotels, tipped off by a friend as to the best places to work. Or she joins the throng which files in and out of the hotel agencies on Sixth Avenue. The agency is usually on the second or third floor of a building with its sign in the doorway on the street floor. Under the sign are daily bulletin boards where the agency posts the “Jobs Open Today.” On the one side are jobs for men, on the other jobs for women. The girl stops to pour over these with a motley crew of women, young and old, trim and slattern, of all nationalities.