At A Glance
Author	Jane66
Contact	[email protected]
IAM	Jane66
When	N/A

A close and talented friend of mine was recently offered job, without a second interview, on the condition he removed his visible modifications. For the record he has three impressive and very pointy labrets, an equally pointy and striking bridge piercing, cheek studs, stretched lobes and a plethora of other ear mods. This made me angry, though I suspect not as angry as it made him, and got me to wondering about where UK employment law actually stands in the case of wearing mods at work. I should point out that I am no expert in employment law and all I have done is read through a few web articles.

I started by looking to see what the official UK Government online resources had to say about diversity and discrimination. I soon discovered that as recently as August 3rd 2003, the Department and Trade for Industry issued the following statement when announcing these European Directives:

- The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations December 2003
- Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations December 2003

Unfair discrimination in employment is wrong. It is bad for the individuals who are denied jobs and access to vocational training, who suffer victimisation or harassment, because of prejudice. It is bad for the businesses which are denying themselves access to the widest pool of talent and not sharing in the benefits - such as increased motivation, lower turnover of staff, and access to wider markets - that a diverse workforce and effective equality policies can bring.
So it seemed that the government did at least have the right end of the stick in its collective hand, but as far as I can tell, the law verily remains an ass. I was briefly heartened when I discovered a successful tribunal case brought by a Stockport Job Centre Plus employee who had refused to wear a tie to work. He had a back office position, not that being on show to the public should really make any difference. Looking harder I found that in fact there have been two recent UK employment tribunal cases brought on the grounds that employers required employees to wear ties at work. I accept that neck-ties and body mods are not exactly the same thing, but it can at least be argued that they are on the same spectrum and definitely in the same general area of personal choice and rights.

Matthew Thompson the Job Centre man won, Mark Caldicott a prison warder lost. Confused? I was so I looked deeper. Matthew Thompson brought a claim against his employer in respect of its "smart casual" dress code. This stipulated that men had to wear a collar and tie to work, but no similar stipulation was set for women. On the other hand, Mark Caldicott, a prison worker, lost his case. He claimed that either all employees or no employees should be required to wear a tie. There should not be a differentiation between male and female employees. The employment tribunal said that, although there was a difference in treatment between male and female officers, it was not discriminatory in this case. It turns out that Mr Thompson effectively won because as a man he was required to be smart and women were not. Employment tribunals do not require exact item-by-item quality in dress codes, but do require generally equal standards to be applied. Hence it was not the dress code itself that led to the successful case, just the inequality of its application. Not as promising a start as it first appeared.

I then started to look into dress codes generally and in particular into recommendations to companies who plan to introduce them. The main problem highlighted was that standards of acceptable clothing change over time and the view on appropriate dress codes for women has arguably changed more so than for men. This is great if you are trying to win a case based on sexual inequality, but not a lot of use if you are simply appealing against the imposition of a ridiculous and facile dress code. If the requirement imposed on an employer is to treat men and women, and presumably different races even-handedly, then, in terms of discrimination law, there is scope for argument about comparable standards, but no need to debate whether the specific dress code is justifiable in the particular circumstances. Bummer!

So is there any good news? Hopefully these two cases will lead to a number of further test cases. I would like to think that some of these may not just be discrimination cases. Any volunteers out there? Challenges to dress codes may be strengthened by human rights arguments in relation to freedom of expression and, perhaps, freedom of religion, in terms of dress. It is on that basis, rather than the discrimination angle, that employees may begin to shift the argument from whether they are being treated equivalently with members of the opposite sex, to whether a particular standard of dress is reasonable or actually required for the job in question. For example, is it reasonable to require an office worker who does not come into contact with clients or the public to wear a shirt and tie? Is it reasonable to expect a network engineer who spends no time at all interfacing with the public to remove their visible piercings? No of course it bloody isn't!

So the most likely source of a successful case against a blatantly unneccessary dress code is the Human Rights Act. It should be possible to argue that an employer who dismisses the employee for breaching a dress code that contravenes the right to freedom of expression does not dismiss the individual fairly, because the instruction to comply with the dress code is not reasonable. I wouldn't hold your breath.

I just checked with my friend's diary entry. This is what he wrote.

"I refuse to change for anyone.
Now I am livid.
Someone in sales said that because I would have been meeting clients for the company and they might find my face offensive.
OFFENSIVE?
This world is screwed.
It's the same as a black person being offered a job in a racially tense neighbourhood, but then them turning round and saying,
'You have to be white though, people might be offended by your face!'
How on earth are things to change if people 'like us' aren't employable by these stupid companies.

Send him virtual hugs. He deserves them.