[Sussex] Tie becomes unbound

[Geoff Teale]

Well.. Steve asked so...

> As a tie is considered to be part of a "smart" man's dress 
> code but not a
> woman's
> I would thing that that case would be the important one.  
> Does someone on
> this
> list who's wife is a lawyer agree with me here - or am I way 
> of the mark.

You are right that in the reality of a court hearing  the outcome might have
been different if the female staff had been required to wear blouses - that
is just a reality of humans inability to seperate the law from their
emotions - it is where we discuss the spirit rather than the letter of the
law.  

Theoreticaly though it should make no difference.  It is not the clothing
itself that is at issue, but the rigid application of a dress code for men
but not for women.  It is the felxability in the womens dress that is the
issue, not what they were wearing.

If the dress code was "all staff must be smartly dressed" you could argue
that it meant women should wear suits and men should wear suits with a tie,
it could equally be argued that a shirt is just as smart without a tie (it's
a question of opinion).  

In this case there would be a cultural assumption based on the overriding
view of the staff - if the culture of the office dictates that you need not
wear a tie then that would become an implied contract term for all
employees.

The interesting thing here is that you _cannot_ legally discriminate between
men and women - so if it is an implied contract term for men then it _must_
be so for women.  If it is explicity stated that men must wear a tie, but
women do not have to then this also breaks regulations.  There is no
practical or physical reason why a women cannot wear a tie and therefore
this cannot be discounted in the same way as differences in hygene
facilities or physical working practices.

So, whichever way you look at it - this _is_ a landmark case and could be
used as precetent for any future action in England or Wales.

What this man has done is simply be the first one to look at the law and
force an organisation to comply with it.  Frankly I think is a disgusting
waste of public funds on the part of "Job Centre Plus" to take this to court
in the first place.

Now the next big one should be this - do civillian organisations have the
right to impose a dress code on their staff at all?

Discuss ;)

-- 
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk
tealeg at member.fsf.org

"make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to prove"
 - Ani DiFranco "Up Up Up Up Up Up"


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