On the 1912-1913 Restaurant Strike Wave
The history of the labor movement holds great lessons for the working class, which is why we must sum up its key episodes in light of our current tasks. The 1912-1913 restaurant strike serves as a high-water mark for labor activity in the restaurant sector even more than a century later. What follows is a sum-up of this key reference point for class-conscious workers in the restaurant industry.
The Objective Situation of Restaurant Workers
At the turn of the 20th Century, there were more than 40,000 restaurant workers in a city of just under 3.5 million. Only a small fraction of those were in unions. These unions were conservative craft organizations that organized workers according to profession, rather than industry. Most unions in the restaurant industry organized waiters or bartenders.
The working class in the restaurant sector had been constituted over the course of successive waves of European immigration. Of the total 42 thousand restaurant workers counted in the 1910 census, less than 1/5 were white workers born in the United States, with 3/4 of the total mass of workers having been born outside the United States. Around 10% were nonwhite, the majority of which were Black Americans, many of whom had migrated from the South in search of work.
Initially, workers from various countries worked together, but over time, hiring practices led to a division of workers according to nationality. For example, many of the cooks in the large hotels were of German origin, whereas Greek workers were often found in small cafés and local diners. The French were often waiters in the large restaurants, or pursued careers as highly-skilled chefs. Italians tended to specialize in baking and otherwise were employed in hotels in poorly paid positions. Southern and Eastern European workers, as well as Black workers, tended to work in larger hotels in the least-desirable positions.
Front-of-House and Back-of-House
Front of house workers were paid extremely meager wages, even at the most refined restaurants in the city. For this reason, they were extremely dependent on tipping. Even with tips, many made less than the required wage to survive. This resulted in intense competition. The intensity of labor was raised as many front-of-house workers were compelled to work incredibly hard for the chance of an extra nickel or dime in order to ward off starvation.
The tipping system made them vulnerable to abuse by restaurant patrons as well as by managerial staff. Many were punished or fired outright for combating the abuse they faced.
They also found themselves rather easily replaced by relatively-unskilled new workers, and despite their meager wages and terrible conditions, tended towards thinking themselves as small businesspersons.
Front-of-house workers were among the very first to attempt to unionize in New York, but tended towards a more conservative type of trade unionism, organizing themselves on strict professional lines accompanied by notions of professional pride. Generally speaking, they were relatively cautious regarding actions on the job.
Back-of-house workers also found themselves in terrible conditions, and they suffered from relatively meager wages. They were often confined in unhealthy underground kitchens infested with rats and mice, promoting the spread of respiratory diseases in addition to injury. Though they often earned a higher wage and had a higher overall income than front-of-house workers, they had to pay for their own tools, and were charged for breakage.
However, trained cooks and chefs were always in high demand, especially if their positions required considerable skill, and the difficulty of replacing them often meant that bosses had to conciliate them to a greater extent. In contrast to waiters and bussers, they were in a position to absolutely halt the functioning of a restaurant. Working closely together and not subjected to the tipping system, back-of-house workers as a whole tended towards a greater combativeness, and favored a broader industrial unionism over the conservative craft unionism practiced by the organizations of waiters.
Early Attempts at Unionization
The Knights of Labor were the first to venture into the territory of organizing restaurant workers in 1885, chartering Local 8742, also known as the German Waiter’s Union. Charters for bakers’ and cooks’ locals were issued charters soon after, but soon fizzled out and disappeared completely.
The waiters’ local dwindled precipitously, down to only 10 members, before closing its doors permanently in 1888.
The Knights of Labor (KL), which combined a conciliatory attitude towards petty employers as well as a mystical world outlook, had shown themselves incapable of providing the perspective necessary to transform the situation of workers.
The American Federation of Labor (AFL), followed in the wake of the failure of the KL, chartering their Local 281 of the waiters union in 1888, with the bartender’s local receiving a charter soon after. Interestingly enough, many of the early members of local 281 were German Jews who had left the KL, perhaps in part due the latters’ strenuous opposition to the sale and consumption of alcohol.
In 1891, the workers of the new Local 281 called for a national convention of culinary trades, and many workers from the Northeast participated in the meeting that came to be known as the ‘Waiters’ Parliament.’ This meeting established the Waiters’ and Bartenders’ National Union, which soon changed its name to the more-inclusive Hotel and Restaurant Employee’s National Union (HRE). Local 281 was renamed for its efforts as Local 1 of the new union.
Led at first by the fiery Socialist waiter Julius Lecket, and seeking to expand beyond the initial narrow base of the initial organization, it wasn’t long before the militants of Local 1 clashed with the extremely conservative and craft-oriented national leadership. Following a jurisdictional dispute with local 3 of HRE, Local 1 of HRE was abruptly liquidated by HRE’s national president in 1901.
By the time that Local 1 was reconstituted some years later, it had become a shadow of its former self, and sought to defend its existence by entrenching itself in conservative craft unionism. It became a tiny aristocracy of a few hundred waiters in a sea of unorganized workers that set initiation fees prohibitively high, and took a conciliatory attitude towards management in order to try and maintain its relatively privileged status. They avoided strikes and sought to preserve a monopoly on their profession, organized against fellow workers.
Anti-labor conservative craft unionism had for a brief time, squashed any hope of organizing New York’s culinary workers. From this point forward, the bureaucrats of the AFL would fight strenuously alongside employers to oppose the struggle of the mass of restaurant workers.
Into the vacuum created by the backwardness of the AFL unions appeared the International Hotel Workers’ Union (IHWU), founded by Joseph Vehling in 1911, a German immigrant, celebrated chef, and historian of the culinary trades.
The perspective of Vehling was not one of combat against the employers. Rather, he held that the conditions of restaurant workers could be improved through the promotion of the culinary arts. This formation promoted the artistry and professionalism of the culinary trades and instead of organizing strikes sought to resolve all disputes through the local courts, occasionally winning reinstatement or back wages for their members. This perspective of culinary professionalism papered over the contradiction between workers and employers.
However the AFL resented the independence of the IHWU, and appointed Joseph Elster, a militant organizer and restaurant worker, to build up their nearly extinct New York locals. Though Elster was rapidly able to sign up hundreds of workers, it became clear that his sense of responsibility lay with the mass of restaurant workers and not with the backwards AFL leadership.
Elster soon condemned AFL leadership for opposing his aim of organizing the mass of restaurant workers, and led hundreds of his followers into the rival independent IHWU in 1912.
The Beginnings of the Strike
Throughout 1911 and 1912 the militant faction of the IHWU, which was opposed to Vehling’s legalistic perspective, grew in size and influence, strengthened by the arrival of Elster’s followers.
Just before May 1 (May Day, or International Workers’ Day), a slim majority of IHWU workers defied union leadership and voted to send a delegation to the May Day parade under the IHWU banner. About 50 workers attended, representing the most active workers in the union.
Several of these workers were employed at the Belmont hotel, run by a despotic manager named Victor Pearl. After one worker was late to work, he was fired by Pearl after revealing that he had participated in the May Day parade. A few days later, after lengthy interrogation, another worker was fired for revealing that he belonged to the Union.
On the evening of May 6, a crowd of angry union workers confronted the executive board of the IHWU, demanding strike authorization. Taken aback, and unable to channel the worker’s frustrations into the legal system as they had previously, IHWU leaders reluctantly handed down the order to strike on May 7.
Walkout at the Belmont
At 7:15 pm on the evening of May 8, at the peak of dinner service, whistles were blown to signal that the strike had begun. A majority of the waiters in the vast hotel politely informed their guests that there was a waiters’ union now, and that they were going on strike.
From their headquarters across the street from the Belmont, workers demanded the firing of the Belmont’s Pearl. When hotel management refused, they expanded the struggle against the tyrannical system of management they dubbed “Pearlism”, which included immense fines which could eat up the majority of a waiter’s salary, 16-18 hour working days, and being forced to eat unsafe food on the job. The waiters of the Belmont hotel demanded the abolition of the system of fines, the reinstatement of all strikers and May Day participants, and the independent review of all disciplinary measures.
By noon on the next day, the workers had virtually emptied one of New York’s proudest hotels. Maintaining their picket line, workers from the Belmont and supporters fanned out across Manhattan distributing handbills, asking workers to join the struggle. “Extra waiters,” workers who could be called in a substitutes, for special events, and occasionally as scabs, were especially receptive to the IHWU’s call to raise the daily wage for extra waiters from $2 to $3 per day.
The Waldorf Astoria Joins In
The next evening, extra waiters at the Waldorf Astoria hotel decided to act around union wage demands. As a gala with 2000 guests began in one of the hotel’s immense ballrooms, 500 waiters stopped work and demanded the 50% increase in pay.
Essentially ambushed, hotel management had no choice but to give in. It became clear to workers that if they made use of the element of surprise, timed their actions very carefully, and acted as a single force, they could force employers to accept their demands.
The IHWU Expands
Practically overnight, the IHWU grew from a few hundred members to 8,000 members. However, it still consisted mainly of front-of-house workers. To rectify this imbalance, the IHWU announced a campaign to enroll the city’s 10,000 cooks.
New York’s cooks had many reasons to heed the union’s call, given that so many of them worked in dank underground kitchens infested with pests, worked long hours, and had suffered an effective decline in wages over the previous years that amounted to a loss of 10-15%.
They were also eager to take advantage of their ability to completely halt production, and of their relative discipline, the spontaneous result of working closely together on the job. Their involvement was to be essential from now on.
The Restaurant Cooks Join the Struggle
At the peak of the dinner service on the evening of May 15, whistles were sounded at the Vanderbilt Hotel. As the waiters filed out into the street, some guests prepared to serve themselves, only to find that many of the cooks had walked out as well, bringing dinner service to a screeching halt.
Seeing no other option, the Hotel Manager walked to IHWU headquarters and immediately gave in to the union’s demands.
The workers of the Vanderbilt had won recognition of their Union, a six-day work week, a pay increase, the abolition of fines, and the independent review of all discharges. Again surprise, timing, and unity of action proved essential in winning another immediate victory.
Negotiations Begin with the Hotel Mens’ Association
In negotiations with the Employer’s Association, the IHWU held up the Vanderbilt settlement as a model that they sought to replicate across the entire sector. The employers conceded the pay raise for extra waiters, but abruptly broke off negotiations a week later. The struggle would have to go on.
The Strike Expands
Over the next week, the strike increased in both size and intensity. On May 27, the workers of the Knickerbocker Hotel walked off, followed by the workers of Churchill’s restaurant and Holland house the following evening. Thousands of workers and their supporters filled the streets, and were attacked by police, hired thugs, and scabs. The workers were undeterred and fought back, and as open street battles broke out throughout Manhattan, patrons of largely-empty hotels watched from rooftops and balconies. Union leaders vowed that no restaurant or hotel would remain unaffected until victory was complete.
On the evening of May 29, workers of the Waldorf-Astoria, as well as of Breslin’s and Rector’s restaurants – two of the finest in the city – joined the fray. The next day, the union struck at the major hotels, adding 1,600 strikers in a single day from the Plaza, the Astor, the St. Regis, the Gotham, the Imperial, and the Prince George. Short and sharp battles in the street continued, with strikers often given as good as they were getting – on several occasions, even routing police and hired thugs.
The Hotel Men’s Association, the organization of the various employers in the sector, threw down the gauntlet, declaring that they would never negotiate with any Union.
Negotiations for a merger between HRE and the IHWU began again openly. Meanwhile, labor figures gathered in New York in support of the strikes of various stripes. Some were conservative trade unionists, whereas others like IHWU leaders, focused on themes of respect and the sanctity of the skilled artisanship of the culinary workers. However the largest crowd turned out to hear speeches from Big Bill Haywood, a legendary organizer of the IWW, and Rose Pastor Stokes of the Socialist Party, who espoused a very different and revolutionary perspective, basing themselves on the antagonism between workers and employers.
Problems Emerge
With the strike dragging on, the employers began to exploit the weaknesses of the union and the strike. Whereas the union had typically fought in short and sharp walkouts in isolated locations, one at a time, they were now trying to maintain a strike that was weeks old with a largely brand-new membership across many locations.
Hotel management began to mobilize scabs, especially from the South, where waiters where brought in by the trainload. The union was not able to maintain discipline, and some waiters began trickling back to work, claiming that their wives had demanded they quit their foolishness and begin making money again.
Lastly, the union had neglected to ensure that non-restaurant hotel employees, such as chambermaids, bellhops, footmen, engineers, electricians, etc. were included in the strike from the beginning. When the union appealed to chambermaids to join the strike after having ignored them up to now, the chambermaids were reluctant to join in what was increasingly a losing battle.
June 21st Bryant Hall Meeting
With the prospects of the strike looking increasingly grim, a mass meeting was called on June 21st at Bryant Hall in Manhattan. At this historic meeting, IHWU leadership endorsed the latest employer offer, which provided for a significant wage increase and improved conditions, but without recognition of the union.
Though the settlement was reasonable given the increasing weakness of the strike effort, the rank-and-file workers were unhappy, considering the terms insufficient. Rose Pastor Stokes, who had previously contributed to the strike effort with speeches and fundraising, abruptly resigned from the IHWU citing the membership’s unhappiness with the proposed deal. Despite various protestations, the strike petered out until it was officially ended on the 26th of June.
Erroneous Conclusions
The right-wing, anti-worker, anti-strike, and anti-struggle AFL criticized the IHWU for daring to be independent, seeking to undermine the strike at every turn for its “dual unionism.” They declared that any chance of organizing workers in New York had been “ruined” by the “reds” who dared to act on the antagonism between employers and workers by fighting for their own interests and for contradicting the compromising and groveling policy of the AFL bootlickers.
The criticisms coming from the IWW, from an erroneous seeming-“left” position, refused to acknowledge the increasing objective weakness of the strike and espoused the perspective that the strike could be won by willpower and fervor alone. They advocated as always for an immediate expansion and the indefinite extension of the strike, without regard for real circumstances, or a concrete set of demands. Though they correctly based themselves on the antagonism between employers and workers, the IWW was consistently unable to make correct tactical decisions based on the real situation, reflecting their perception of the strike as not a contest between real forces but a combat of sheer willpower.
However, strikes cannot be won by blustering and phrase-mongering alone.
When the IHWU leaders correctly pointed out that the strike was headed for failure, that the strength of the Union was waning in relation to the strength of the employers, and that the workers should take what they could instead of heading for disaster, the IWW criticized them as cowards.
A Temporary Lull
The IHWU had won higher wages, better conditions, the abolition of fines, and in some cases the outright suppression of the tipping system in favor of a higher wage for waiters. Additionally they had enrolled 15,000 new members, and had shown a considerable ability interrupt production, earning a certain measure of respect.
Following the strike, and the intense upsurge in militancy among new membership, the last vestiges of Vehling’s backward perspective in the organization were wiped out. A new constitution was implemented which enshrined a new combative outlook, and which opened Union membership to noncitizens, any worker regardless of color, creed, sex, and nationality, and dramatically lowered fees and dues.
However things were not all well. The incomplete victory of the previous strike wave, and lingering dissatisfaction led to a certain degree of posturing and infighting between the front-of-house and back-of-house workers. Exhaustion of union forces following the drawn out strike earlier that year allowed the bosses to embark on a test of their strength. They lowered wages, worsened conditions, and even reimposed fines in some cases, all in violation of the agreement that had ended the strike. IHWU newspapers began to fill up with reports of wage cuts, dangerous conditions, and reprisals against workers.
The transformed and militant IHWU would not go long before responding.
The Strike Breaks Out Again
On January 31, in the early afternoon of what was traditionally the busiest night of the year for restaurants, the order to strike every restaurant or hotel that was in violation of the previous union agreement was handed down. What few preparations had been carried out were done in complete secrecy. The surprise was so complete that many locations did not immediately go on strike, since they had been given less than 5 hours notice, and in some cases, no notice at all.
Despite the rocky start, 13 establishments had given in to union terms by the next day. The strike continued, with cooks and kitchen helpers leading the way in many cases. The influence of the IWW, which had many sympathizers among the new IHWU, grew exponentially, with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Arturo Giovanitti becoming leading figures, and Walter Eggman placed in charge of the walkout.
In fear, the employers decided to resort to outright violence. At the Astor, when the strike whistle was blown, hired thugs sought to physically prevent the workers from walking out. The whistleblowers were taken to the basement and beaten continuously.
When word got out, a crowd of workers and supporters formed outside. Projectiles were thrown, including a brick which shattered a window and narrowly missed a pair of diners.
The police, the employers, hired gangsters, and strikebreakers used the cudgel indiscriminately. Showing a combative spirit scarcely seen today, striking workers fought back. There was an intricate patchwork of highly mobile street battles throughout the city.
The IWW Takes the Reins
On January 13th, leadership of the walkout passed to a five-member strike committee, on which the IWW took the lead, with Flynn and Tresca in the most prominent positions. Soon after, 2000 workers who were locked out by their employers endorsed a motion for a general strike against the city’s restaurants and hotels.
At a later mass meeting, at which 6000 workers were present, Flynn, who by this point was essentially singlehandedly leading the strike, put forward a new program of 3 demands.
The first demand was for a $20 minimum weekly wage for waiters, which would largely eliminate the tipping system. The second was for a universal eight-hour working day, which would replace the much longer shifts that many had been forced to work. The third demand was for the abolition of private employment agencies, which often took portions of worker’s pay in return for securing a job. Legal recognition of the union, which had previously been a pivotal point in the IHWU program, was not even mentioned.
The 6000 workers in attendance enthusiastically voted to pass the new three point program. However the call from IWW leadership to declare a general strike fell on deaf ears. If they had passed the motion, it hardly would have mattered, as the strike petered out by the 31st of that same month, in a rather anticlimactic fashion. The IWW organizers slunk out of the city with their reputation among workers in the city thoroughly ruined.
Summing Up
The right-wing false worker leaders of the conservative AFL, which had done everything in their power to undermine the strike, criticized the restaurant workers for daring to struggle in the first place. They claimed that New York was now “unorganizable.” In a sense, they were right. After the immense militant upsurge, where workers had fought on the basis of a sectoral perspective, there would be no room for the groveling bureaucratic unionism of the AFL.
The IWW leaders who had presided over the historic failure of the strike sang a very different tune. Some would go on to claim that they had been duped, and that the IHWU leaders had cynically handed responsibility for the strike to them once it was clear that it was impossible to win.
This is a far cry from their earlier insinuation – at the June 21 Bryant Hall meeting– that strikes could only be lost by the cravenness of labor leaders. Whereas previously the strike was a contest of wills detached from the objective situation, now they claim that their fate had been sealed from the beginning by objective forces they could not control.
Through this inconsistency, the IWW leaders absolved themselves of all responsibility for the strike’s failure.
We should also reject the notion that the strike failed because workers were “scared off’ by the IWW’s open insistence on an independent perspective of the working class, by their expansive solidarity, or by their open revolutionism.
The real error of the IWW was rather their attempt to carry out the strike on the strength of mere high-sounding revolutionary phrases alone, while consistently advocating tactics that did not reflect the real situation.
A strike is a contest between industrial armies. It must be thought of as a battle, and it is clear that armies cannot win battles on phrases, or on militant fervor alone. The strike must be conducted according to a clear understanding of one’s own strengths and weaknesses, those of the enemy, and of external circumstances.
Two factors are decisive in determining tactics in the restaurant sector both then and now: the relative and temporary weakness of the workers, the relative and temporary strength of the employers, and the prevalence of small shops.
In crucial moments decisions were made to fight in a fashion that emphasized the weaknesses of the union and the strength of the employers. This, and not fate, as the IWW implied – or that they dared strike at all, as the AFL concluded– was ultimately the cause of the failure of the strike waves of 1912-1913. We should be careful not to repeat these mistakes.
At the same time, the strike won numerous important, partial victories by fighting – perhaps unconsciously – in a fashion that emphasized the workers’ strengths and masterfully exploited the weaknesses of the employers. We should creatively apply these tactics in order to achieve the necessary transformation of the sector and of the labor movement generally.
The confrontations in which workers were successful in the 1912-1913 strike wave were those that fit the pattern of limited strikes of quick decision. Timing and surprise were of the essence, and so the workers struck at times of peak business and without warning. Workers moved as a single body and shut down their workplaces within minutes. The concentrated forces of the union struck at the isolated detachments of the employers’ associations with temporarily superior force.
The workers were extremely successful when they fought in a way that could be compared to an ambush. In the successful phases of the strike, the campaign overall was protracted, but each individual action was rapidly decided.
The instances in which workers were unsuccessful were those in which the workers widened the struggle too far at a time and were unable to concentrate force in order bring about a rapidly decisive outcome. This allowed employers to coordinate their response, and to deploy large numbers of strikebreakers and scabs. Additionally, when the element of surprise was lost, the employers could make arrangements in advance to be able to continue business rather than panic. The fact that the union often failed to bring out the entirety of a location’s workforce when trying rapidly generalize the strike also did not help.
Unsuccessful encounters were comparatively wider and drawn out, more like conventional battles. For this reason, widening the struggle in the way that the IWW advocated at every moment in which the workers failed to immediately force a decisive outcome was exactly incorrect.
Rather than turn a failed ambush into a protracted conventional battle, where the employers were able to exhaust and wear down the worker forces, it would be better to temporarily disengage and to try again at another moment, assuring worker forces remained intact.
We should learn these lessons and seek to creatively apply them in our future work. As we study the history of the worker movement in our industry, we should remember that we draw lessons from history not for knowledge’s own sake but to be able to use them to advance our class project, to be able to transform the reality to which workers in our sector and beyond are currently subjected.