Aurora. If you want to live you have to eat, and if you can’t find food any other way you have to fall in line with the man who has the food.
The waiters were no better off. They received only twenty pesos a month and were expected to live on their tips. But the people weren’t liberal with tips; and when customers were few and far between, the waiters had an even harder time. Then, too, they were blamed for the shortage of customers and Señora Doux begrudged them even their twenty pesos in wages. The bakers lived in the dormitory, but the waiters had families and lived at home, so that they had household expenses. They weren’t even given food, but got a meal only occasionally as a favor or special privilege.
One of the waiters got the fever and was dead in three days; he was a Spaniard who had come over here only two years before. A Mexican called Morales came to take his place, a quick, intelligent fellow. When I had to take pastries into the café I would notice that Morales was usually talking to one or another of his fellow waiters. Of course they always talked among themselves when they weren’t serving customers, but now I saw a difference. Before, the waiters had talked together superficially, about the lotteries or about their side activities or about girls or about their families. They had laughed and joked as they gossiped.
But when Morales spoke with them it wasn’t a laughing matter, and they listened to him attentively. Morales always did the talking and the others always listened. I saw something come to life: the Union of Restaurant Employees.
The Mexican trade unions had no cumbersome bureaucratic machinery. Their secretaries didn’t consider themselves to be “officials,” but were actually young hotheaded revolutionaries. The Mexican unions had come into being during the 1910-1920 Revolution, and had developed along the most modern lines. They could draw upon the experiences of the North-American trade unions and of the Russian Revolution; they had the explosive power of a young Sturm and Drang movement, and the elasticity of an organization that is still feeling its way and changing its tactics daily.
Up the street at the Moderna there was a waiters’ strike.
Doux, however, smiled to himself, having no fear of such a thing happening in his place. And now all the Moderna’s customers were coming to Doux’s Café Aurora because they were ill at ease in the strike-bound Moderna. They had good reason to be, for the police were neutral in the struggles of striking workers. If a customer went into a strike-bound café and got hit on the head with a flying brick or a bottle, he would be helped to the Red Cross station to get his wound dressed, but aside from that the police wouldn’t worry about him. After all, the pickets in front of the café had warned him of the strike; he had read of it in the newspapers and had had enough handbills thrust at him, so that he might have known what to expect. There was no need for him to go into this café; he could have gone to another one, or taken a seat in the plaza, or gone for a promenade. Anyone who deliberately enters a place where stones are being thrown has only himself to blame if he gets one on the head.
After four days of strike, the Moderna agreed to all the union’s demands.
12
One afternoon, about three weeks after the Moderna strike was settled, when there were only a few customers in the café, Morales went to Doux and said: “Now listen, Señor, an eight-hour day, twelve pesos a week, one full meal a day, and coffee and rolls twice a day.”
For a moment Doux looked scared, but he quickly collected himself and said: “Come along to the cashier’s counter, Morales. There are your wages, you may go. You’re dismissed, fired!”
Morales turned around, took off his white jacket, and picked up the money that Doux had set down on the counter. All the other waiters, who had been watching, immediately took off their jackets and went
The waiters were no better off. They received only twenty pesos a month and were expected to live on their tips. But the people weren’t liberal with tips; and when customers were few and far between, the waiters had an even harder time. Then, too, they were blamed for the shortage of customers and Señora Doux begrudged them even their twenty pesos in wages. The bakers lived in the dormitory, but the waiters had families and lived at home, so that they had household expenses. They weren’t even given food, but got a meal only occasionally as a favor or special privilege.
One of the waiters got the fever and was dead in three days; he was a Spaniard who had come over here only two years before. A Mexican called Morales came to take his place, a quick, intelligent fellow. When I had to take pastries into the café I would notice that Morales was usually talking to one or another of his fellow waiters. Of course they always talked among themselves when they weren’t serving customers, but now I saw a difference. Before, the waiters had talked together superficially, about the lotteries or about their side activities or about girls or about their families. They had laughed and joked as they gossiped.
But when Morales spoke with them it wasn’t a laughing matter, and they listened to him attentively. Morales always did the talking and the others always listened. I saw something come to life: the Union of Restaurant Employees.
The Mexican trade unions had no cumbersome bureaucratic machinery. Their secretaries didn’t consider themselves to be “officials,” but were actually young hotheaded revolutionaries. The Mexican unions had come into being during the 1910-1920 Revolution, and had developed along the most modern lines. They could draw upon the experiences of the North-American trade unions and of the Russian Revolution; they had the explosive power of a young Sturm and Drang movement, and the elasticity of an organization that is still feeling its way and changing its tactics daily.
Up the street at the Moderna there was a waiters’ strike.
Doux, however, smiled to himself, having no fear of such a thing happening in his place. And now all the Moderna’s customers were coming to Doux’s Café Aurora because they were ill at ease in the strike-bound Moderna. They had good reason to be, for the police were neutral in the struggles of striking workers. If a customer went into a strike-bound café and got hit on the head with a flying brick or a bottle, he would be helped to the Red Cross station to get his wound dressed, but aside from that the police wouldn’t worry about him. After all, the pickets in front of the café had warned him of the strike; he had read of it in the newspapers and had had enough handbills thrust at him, so that he might have known what to expect. There was no need for him to go into this café; he could have gone to another one, or taken a seat in the plaza, or gone for a promenade. Anyone who deliberately enters a place where stones are being thrown has only himself to blame if he gets one on the head.
After four days of strike, the Moderna agreed to all the union’s demands.
12
One afternoon, about three weeks after the Moderna strike was settled, when there were only a few customers in the café, Morales went to Doux and said: “Now listen, Señor, an eight-hour day, twelve pesos a week, one full meal a day, and coffee and rolls twice a day.”
For a moment Doux looked scared, but he quickly collected himself and said: “Come along to the cashier’s counter, Morales. There are your wages, you may go. You’re dismissed, fired!”
Morales turned around, took off his white jacket, and picked up the money that Doux had set down on the counter. All the other waiters, who had been watching, immediately took off their jackets and went
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