WHEN YOU WAITRESS, you work for the tips, not the wage, because a dollar an hour is nothing to speak of. Very soon you learn to tell the tippers apart and you find out that there are only two types you can rely on: paunchy businessmen who tip because of your legs and former waitresses.
Many American women have waitressed at some time in their lives, and they don't forget the experience. Once you've waitressed, eating in a restaurant becomes a different experience. You walk into a place and you figure which stations are the best, you notice who is getting the big parties, and who has been assigned the slow sections. You know that if it's and odd hour like 10 a.m. or 3 p.m. that no one in the place is making more than $1 an hour in tips. You notice if the tables are placed so that the waitresses can walk around without bumping into each other. I notice that especially because I used to work at the Pewter Pot where the tables are so close together that I spilled two relish trays and several cups of coffee on customers.
THERE IS A KIND of comraderie between those who have waitressed, but unfortunately it has never extended much beyond the courtesy of former waitresses remembering to leave decent tips. The Harvard Square Waitresses Organizing Committee represents the first attempt in this area to go beyond sympathetic Comraderie. Twelve waitresses from Cronin's have organized to demand better pay, better working conditions and general recognition of waitressing as a decent job and not just a menial task assigned to willing women. Their attempt is something new and hopefully something that will grow.
Why didn't a waitressing union in the Square ever happen before? It seems like a logical extension of American unionism, yet there are some factors that have tended to discourage organization among waitresses.
First of all, waitressing is conceived as a temporary occupation. Most women who waitress do so for short periods of time, generally six months or less. Restaurant owners expect this and want this. They know that there will always be another girl willing to work for the low wage to replace the girl who has just left.
Both employers and employees conceive of waitressing as a temporary job. Employers expect that waitresses can put up with bad conditions such as long hours, low pay, no place to take breaks, carrying heavy trays, and being on their feet, because they won't have to do it for long.
THEY ALSO EXPECT waitresses to put up with it because they are women. One of woman's traditional roles is to bring man his food; in restaurants women get the added benefit of being paid to do this.
For me, as for most waitresses, the physical demands of the job and the bad attitudes surrounding the work gradually build up until the individual waitress quits, if she can afford it. I was lucky; I could go back to Radcliffe. Looking back I can pick out some of the worst incidents. One night, two guys came in, ordered two cups of coffee and twenty creams, and said. "We're on welfare; it's the cheapest nourishment we can get." They drank all the creams and built a little pyramid of empty creamer cups--with no tip underneath. Another night, I dropped a tray of Muffins on the floor, began to throw them all away, and found the manager scowling down at me, asking what I was doing. "Those muffins are perfectly good," he said.
And there was a guy who came in three times a night several times a week with a different pick-up and never left a tip. I finally told him my living depended on tips and would he mind using another restaurant to do his sex scouting? He left, but I was stepping out of place and was reprimanded by the manager. The only way we survived was by having muffin fights afterhours, which was not a very good solution to the problem.
HSWU AND THE STRIKE at Cronin's is a better way. Conditions at Cronin's are somewhat worse than at other restaurants in the Square. The waitresses' union began at Cronin's before Thanksgiving last year, according to Patty Welch, one of the waitresses. The waitresses started meeting informally and talking about working at Cronin's and what kind of changes they would like to see made. Twelve of the 15 waitresses presented their demands to James D. Cronin, the owner of the restaurant, at the beginning of December. He refused to consider them and on December 9 the waitresses walked out of Cronin's. "At that time we didn't have a definite idea of what we were going to do once we walked out," Welch said, "but we knew we were going to leave if Cronin didn't do anything with our demands."
When he did nothing, the waitresses decided to form a union and they asked Cronin to recognize them as authorized bargaining agents for waitresses at the restaurant. Although 12 out of 15 waitresses at the restaurant had signed authorization slips giving HSWU authority to bargain for them, Cronin refused to recognize the union.
The waitresses picketed for four days and Cronin changed his mind. According to Welch, Cronin's lawyers advised him against signing a legal agreement recognizing HSWOC as the sole bargaining agent for waitresses at his restaurant, but he refused their advice. The waitresses' strike was really cutting down his business in just four short days.
FOLLOWING RECOGNITION of the Union, picketing stopped temporarily and negotiating sessions began between Cronin and his lawyers and the waitresses and their lawyers.
The HSWU demands throughout the strike include the following:
* A wage increase of 25 cents per hour from $1.10 per hour to $1.35 per hour
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