Winthrop Petitions Central Kitchens For Return of Own Serving-Ladies

With heavy hearts and nasty tempers, the men of Winthrop House acted last weekend to regain their lost dining hall serving women.

On a petition posted on the dining hall bulletin board, more than 100 students and tutors in Winthrop have registered their "protest against the rotation of the serving ladies, particularly those who were in previous years assigned to Winthrop House."

The source of the rampant discontent is a new system under which the Central Kitchen Houses will have their serving personnel periodically rotated among the five halls. Some of the women had previously worked in the same House for as many as 15 years.

A Winthrop tutor expressed the general feeling in the House yesterday when he complained that "a special touch has been taken from the dining hall. Our serving women were very much a part of the House, and we miss them."

Some of the women who used to work in Winthrop House are reportedly discontented with their new assignments, about which they learned when they reported for work this Fall. The distressed Winthrop men say they are as concerned about the women's feelings as their own.

The purpose of the rotation of the serving women is to "create a labor pool that can operate in all five Central Kitchen Houses," C. Graham Hurlburt, director of the food services department, said yesterday.

Hurlburt discounted reports in some Houses that the switch was connected with his department's efforts at uniform portion control. This problem, he said, has been handled separately.

While all the Central Kitchen Houses had become "familiar" with their serving women, Hurlburt said, very few women had complained and only Winthrop House had drawn up a petition.

According to present plans, groups of women will be moved "from time to time," with no particular regularity. After the new system has been "given a chance to operate," the implications of the switch will be reconsidered, and the Winthrop petition given attention, Hurlburt added.