Parisian chefs will go on strike

For several days, the various unions which bring together food workers have been reporting the threat of a strike which was to break out on the occasion of the Olympic Games. Monday evening, at the Labor Exchange, Ferrer room, the cooks, gathered in the number of several thousand, decided to stop work on Saturday morning.

It was on a question of contract that the talks were broken off.
Cooks are currently demanding the following salaries:

a) In restaurants, hotels and brasseries, 250 francs per week for chefs, 175 francs for first assistants, 160 francs for second assistants, 100 francs for beginners;

b) In the broths, 250 francs for the chefs and 200 francs for the chefs de part;

c) Around Paris (Champs-Elysées included), 290 francs for party leaders, 225 francs for first clerks, 190 francs for second clerks, 160 francs for third clerks.

Several bosses have already granted these salaries to their staff. However, they refuse to guarantee them by contract. It is to obtain this contract that the cooks will also go on strike.

The cooks demand the “application of all social laws. We recall, on this subject, the investigation opened by the Work into the deplorable hygienic conditions offered by most Parisian restaurant kitchens.

Union leaders believe that the number of strikers will rise to 7,000 on Saturday. It is likely that if the movement takes off on such a scale, the cooks will not take long to obtain satisfaction.
It could, moreover, be that the lemon sellers, the wine merchants, the bakers, the Halles workers, the butchers and the grocers would follow the movement. Their unions have, in fact, voted on agendas in favor of energetic action to raise wages at a time when the influx of foreigners must impose additional work on them. If the talks do not conclude before Saturday, it would likely result in a strike by all food workers.