Robert J. Hemingray

Hotel Executives Run Elevators,

Cook Meals, As Workers Strike

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 2. (AP) — Dignified hotel executive operated elevators and cooked meals today as the Steel City's eight principal hotels strove to accommodate 3,500 guests bewildered and inconvenienced by a strike.

The walkout of 2,400 service employees of the hostelries Tuesday midnight left their managers and white collar workers with the necessity of performing menial tasks themselves. Richard Nash, manager of Webster Hall hotel, said he "fried the steaks myself" last night for a group of assistants with whose help the hotel is "trying to get by."

Patrons chuckled over the way some managers ran elevators, shooting the cages up quickly and often overshooting the mark.

"Their finding the floor level is like a drunk trying to find a keyhole," said one guest.

Registrations were being refused and guests had to shift for themselves, such as by carrying their own luggage and making up beds. Dining rooms, barber shops, and bars in the hotels were closed.

It's Kinda Lonesome.

Missing the usually bustling scene of travelers going to and fro in the lobby, Assistant Manager R. J. Hemingray of the Hotel Pittsburgher said:

"It's kinda lonesome around here. In fact, it's barren."

Managements counted themselves fortunate in having no large conventions scheduled this week, but a four-day conclave of the Pennsylvania Medical society with an attendance of 2,200 is booked for the 1,600-room William Penn hotel starting Monday.

A spokesman said nervously the hotel's "plans are unchanged" and indicated its main hope was that the strike would end before the date, adding "it is not a pleasant situation."

Smaller hotels, unaffected by the strike, were doing a landslide business among the hundreds of out-of-town business representatives making calls in this great defense center, the nation's twelfth largest city.

The strike was called by the AFL Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Alliance, seeking wage increases of 15 to 20 per cent for service employees whose scale had ranged from $20 a month (bell-hops) to $175 a month (chief cook and chief baker).