On November 23, 1900, 40 Seattle waitresses organize a union. It is Local No. 240 of Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Alliance. Before they were organized, waitresses worked 12 to 15 hours a day seven days a week and earned an average of $1.30 per day.
By 1902 membership had increased to 195 and hours had been reduced to 10 hours per day seven days a week.
William Blackman, Commissioner of the state Bureau of Labor in 1902, stated, "This is the best conducted union in the state" (Third Biennial Report). By 1908 membership had increased to 350, which was 95 percent of the trade. Ten years later there were 618 members, all women.
Sources:
[Washington] Bureau of Labor, Third Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor of the State of Washington 1901-1902 (Seattle: Metropolitan Press, Inc., public printer, 1903), 105; [Washington] Bureau of Labor, Sixth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Factory Inspection 1907-1908 (Olympia: C.W. Gorham, Public Printer, 1908), 138.
Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that
encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both
HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any
reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this
Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For
more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact
the source noted in the image credit.
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided
By:
The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins
| Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry
| 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle
| City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach
Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private
Sponsors and Visitors Like You