Strike ended, Hotels open, R.J. Hemingray comments

STRIKE ENDED,

HOTELS OPENED

Employes Accept Proposal

of $215,000 Wage

Increases

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 16 — (AP) — A strike of 1,600 hotel service workers and bartenders which closed the city's eight prinicpal hotels for 15 days and caused an estimated $1,000,000 loss in business ended early today when the strikers voted acceptance of a proposal granting them wage increases totalling $215,000 a year.

The AFL Hotel and Restaurant Employs Alliance originally asked a 20 per cent boost approximating $356,000 a year and had turned down three other compromise offers. About 2,400 workers were affected by the strike.

A union attorney estimated the new contract would provide individual increases of 15 to 17 per cent and more in some cases. The wage scale had ranged from $20 a month for bellhops to $175 a month for cooks and bartenders. Others affected included elevator and telephone operators, maids, scrubwomen, waiters, busboys, dishwashers and bakers.

The eight hotels — The William Penn, Fort Pitt, Pittsburgher, Keystone, Roosevelt, Webster Hall, Henry and Schenley — had a total registration of 3,500 when the strike was called. Transients were sent to smaller Hotels unaffected by the walkout and permanent guests who remained had to carry their own luggage and make up beds.

Hotel managers had been "filling in" by running elevators and taking a turn at cooking for skeleton staffs who remained on duty. "We sure are happy — and the guests are tickled to death," said R. J. Hemingray, asistant manager of the Hotel Pittsburgher. "We are ordering in the cleaners, food and laundry to get things running again. Our soiled linen was piled up sky-high."

The hotels estimated they were losing a total daily gross income of $12,000, which in 15 days cost them $180,000. The strikers lost a total of $60,000 in wages. Heavy losses were also reported by wholesalers who supply the hotels with food, and by theaters, restaurants, clubs and department stores. A leading food wholesaler and departmentstore each estimated their loss at $1,000 a day.

Merchants and business men estimated conventions cost them a half-million dollars in gross income.