As a waitress, Alice Lord had to put up with a lot of unpleasantness, but she wasn't going to tolerate 15-hour days. Lord helped Seattle waitresses form a union in 1900, and led successful campaigns to promote landmark minimum wage and hour laws for working women, in addition to women's suffrage.

Lord was 23 years old when she came to Seattle shortly before the turn of the century. As a waitress, she experienced terrible working conditions working 12-15 hours a day, seven days a week. She and other waitresses realized that as individuals they were powerless to bring about change. They decided to organize, and quickly won support from local labor leaders. With 65 founding members, the Waitresses Union (now Dining Employees Local #2) was one of the earliest women's unions chartered by the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

The Red-Hottest Unionists

Organized labor's official newspaper, the Seattle Union Record introduced the new union in March 1900, proclaiming the waitresses, "will have behind them the united support of organized labor in any just request or demand they make of their employer." In May, the editors praised the waitresses for being "the red-hottest unionists in Seattle" and called them "pioneers of their sex."

In February 1901, the Union Record reminded readers that "When the Waitresses' Union was organized in this city, there were small-minded people who looked upon it as something of a joke. [The waitresses] have shown that women can maintain a union as successfully as men."

Waitresses Local 240 had a triple agenda: to improve the status of working women, to promote the rights of the working class as a whole, and to win suffrage for women. With help from AFL strategists, the waitresses studied union issues and learned tactics of strikes, negotiations, and lobbying.

In their own column in the October, 1902 issue, the waitresses reported that their membership had doubled during its first year. They summarized their impressive progress: "Before organizing the girls were compelled to work all the way from ten to fifteen hours per day for from $3 to $6 per week, but now thanks to organization, we are never called upon to work more than ten hours and receive in compensation thereof $8.50 to $10 per week."

They Give Horses a Day of Rest

In 1901, legislators responded by enacting the 10-hour day for working women. Pressing onward for a six-day week, Lord told them, "You give even your horses one day's rest in seven." The six-day week did not become state law until 1920, but the waitresses won it years earlier through their union contract. From 1903 to 1911, the union lobbied for the eight-hour day and persuaded club women to support their campaign. In March 1911, legislators passed the "Waitresses' Bill," making Washington state one of the first with an eight-hour day for women.

Lord played an important part in the ensuing campaign for a minimum wage law, arguing against opponents who maintained that working conditions in Washington were already superior to those back East. She wrote in the March 1, 1913 Union Record: "We do not want sweatshops nor tenement districts. Now is the time to make laws to prevent such conditions, not wait until said conditions exist and then bring about reform." During the 1913 session, lawmakers enacted a landmark $10 per week minimum wage for women (excluding domestic and agricultural workers).

Lord served as the Waitresses Union's business agent and held various offices until 1931, when she resigned to marry. Within two years, she rejoined, and members again elected her president. She held the office until her death from a stroke on March 8, 1940. The Central Labor Council summed up her achievements on behalf of union waitresses, noting that "Working hours have been reduced more than 50 percent while wages have increased more than 300 percent."