Activity

With the extension of the Taft-Hartley Act to the hotel and restaurant industry in 1955, and the passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act in 1959, the ability of waitress unions to exert control over their occupation was severely hampered.11 Closed shops, the removal of members from the job for noncompli…

As nonunion competition proliferated, skepticism about the benefits of unionism spread among organized employers. When enterprising young applicants appeared daily at their kitchen doors seeking work, union employers resented having to hire through the union. Although inexperienced, these fresh-fac…

The hotel and restaurant industry was shifting geographically. In the 1940s and 1950s, the center of the industry moved away from its traditional urbanized core to new unorganized, hostile territories: the Deep South, the Southwest, and into the suburbs.7 With the lower and middle classes relying a…