ANGRY TYPISTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 12

ANGRY TYPISTES.

PROTEST AT CANBERRA,

AN OFFENSIVE NOTICE.

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 house, a new set of rules for the conduct of the building. A demand is to be made for tho withdrawal of the notices.

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 he entertained by residents in their private rooms. The commission will be asked whether similar notices have been placed in other boarding houses, and, if not, why Gorman House was selected as a starting point. Another rule which is objected to provides that private parties must cease at midnight. The girls complain that they havo lost considerably by the transfer to Canberra, and that employees of the commission havo received better treatment than has been given to public servants. They point out that tho sitting room accommodation available to them is inadequate, and that improvements which the cornmission 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, rales 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 girls will decide not to return to the Federal 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 tho rear of Beauchamp House, where they aro accommodated, had been stolen. Tho theft is the first of its kind reported in Canberra.