ANGRY TYPISTES

Evening Star, Issue 19762, 12 January 1928, Page 9

ANGRY TYPISTES

PROTEST AT CANBERRA. Indignation has been caused among women employees, mostly typistes, of the Australian Commonwealth departments, at the action of the Federal Capital Commission in posting at Gorman House, their boarding nouse, a new set of rules for the conduct of the building. A demand is to be made for the the notice. It is considered that there is an affront in the posting of the stipulation that intoxicating liquor must not be taken into rooms and that men must not be entertained by residents in their private rooms. The commission will he asked whether similar notices have been placed in .other hoarding houses, and, if not, why Gorman House was selected ns a starting point. Another rule which is objected to provides that private parties must cease at midnight. The girls complain that they have lost considerably by the transfer to Canberra, and that employees of the commission have received better treatment than has been given to public servants. They point out that the sitting room accommodation available to them is inadequate, and that improvements which the commission promised to undertake at least three months ago have not yet been begun. They have formed a house committee to deal with the complaint about rules and with a large number of other matters which have caused dissatisfaction. In some of the departments which have been depending upon temporary typistes it is feared that many of the firls will decide not- to return to the 'ederal capital after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Women employees received another shock recently when they found that a large quantity of _ clothing which they had placed on lines at the rear of Beauchamp House, where they are accommodated, had been stolen. The theft is the first of its kind reported in Canberra.