THE WAGES OF CLUB SERVANTS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, Will you allow me to put before your readers some facts about the starvation wages paid to many unorganised workers, of whom some at least are employed by prosperous and wealthy hotels and social clubs in the West End of London ?
The workers I refer to are mostly out of sight and under- ground and work in the kitchen as porters or silver-cleaners or on other miscellaneous jobs, but they also include waiters, barmen and cloakroom and lift attendants. By the nature of 'their employment and the hours they have to keep, they are compelled to live in or near Central London and to pay rents which are felt as heavy even by relatively well-paid men in full work.
Mr. Rowntree recently estimated 53s. (including 9s. 6d. for rent) as the proper subsistence income for man, wife and three children. The wages to which I am referring are frequently as low as 35s. a week, and out of this the earner has to pay a rent which is often as much as 15s. and support a wife and family.
It will no doubt be said that the wages are often supple- mented (a) by one or more daily meals for the worker, and (b) perhaps in some cases by Christmas donations. As to (a) the meals given do not reach the children at home ; I have personally mown a case where the children of a kitchen servant in a well-known London club had to be fed for some years continuously with school meals at public expense because of the inadequacy of the father's wage. As to the Christmas donation, it would have to be very generous indeed to outweigh 51 weeks' underpayment and malnutrition.
' Some day perhaps some form of minimum wage legislation or family allowance may bring relief to these workers. But meantime, would it not be well for the patrons and members of London hotels and clubs to look into the matter for them- selves ? There must be hundreds of men and women who lunch or dine daily at such places who have no idea that some of the servants who are contributing to their comfort and enjoyment are grievously underpaid.—Yours truly, F. G. PRATT,
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