CLAIMS FOR EQUALITY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19337, 29 May 1937, Page 4

CLAIMS FOR EQUALITY

STAFFS OF HOTELS .MEALS SAME AS GUESTS CRITICISM BY EMPLOYERS (Special to the Herald.) AUCKLAND, this day. Equality is carried to amazing lengths in claims which have been put forward by the Hotel Workers' Union for a new Dominion award.

The proceedings are expected to commence early next month, and in the meantime hotel proprietors throughout the country, particularly those interesteJ in hotels catering for the tourist traffic. are racking their brains over the matters of higher remuneration, shorter working hours and princely living conditions. The claims by the union are largely for an extension of the benefits enjoyed under the existing award, which is admittedly the most generous which has ever governed the employment of hotel workers in this country. The employees are putting forward demands for higher wages and longer holidays and allowances if they choose to have their meals away from hotels on their days off, and most surprising of all, equal cuisine to that provided for the guests whom they are paid to serve. "If this thing goes on," said a leading hotel manager yesterday, "the guests may well be called upon to pay a high hotel tariff for the privilege for waiting on the staff. ' In one or two respects the present claims are so sweeping that they can hardly be regarded seriously." Perhaps the most contentious clause in the claims put forward by the union is that which states: "Staffs shall be supplied with similar food to that provided for the guests of the establishment. No warmed up vegetables shall be served to the staff."

Commenting on this point hotel managers stated that the logical interpretation appeared to be that the staffs were demanding exactly the same menus as those provided for the guests. "I do not think any hotel servant expects to live at the rate of 25s a day," one man said, "but the demands speak for themselves. If the dinner menu includes caviare, oysters and • roast pheasant, apparently the staff are to be entitled to that fare as well as the guests. Some of them are seemingly determined to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. No first class hotel with a large staff could continue in business under those conditions."