[Sussex] Tie becomes unbound

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

Thanks for replying

On 12 March 2003 at 08:08 Geoff Teale wrote:
> Well.. Steve asked so...

I did - I have to admit it.
 
> > 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.  

This is were I have problems.
 
> 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.

I agree as Nik said (as I was writing this):
: I think the dress code issue gets more interesting when you
: get into summertime. Whilst a Mans Dress code is not expected
: to change, in fact Nylon/PolyCotton Dark Suits, Nylon or
: Cotton shirts and a tie in the middle of a 25degree heatwave
: is the expected norm. Meanwhile the Women can be seen in Light
: Cotton summer dresses! 

> 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).  

I would have thought that most companies would allow a men to
wear women's cloths and let normal social pressures stop them
wearing short skirts with sleeveless blouses.  That way they 
cannot be seen to be sexist.

In my first company (over five years back and well before this
case started) there was a block that came out and declared 
himself to be a transsexual.  The company required that he still
follow the smart dress code.  Luckily he didn't choice to wear
those "little numbers" that Nik likes so much.

After a bad time he came in claming he was feed-up with the 
whole thing and he was going back to being a man.  HR,
apparently told him to "go home, think it over, and come
back into work tomorrow in his dress".  Now that was an 
an enlightened company.
 
> 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 explicitly 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.
 
If I understand this right in a company that doesn't enforce
tie wearing of it's women staff (and lets face it non do) they
can not legally enforce it for the men either.
 
> So, whichever way you look at it - this _is_ a landmark case 
> and could be used as precedent for any future action in
> England or Wales.

That I didn't see.
 
> 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.

I didn't see this as that much of a waste of time.  The company
(in this case the "Job Centre Plus") was imposing an unfair 
working practice on part of it's work-force.  That fact that the
rule was minor is not the issue here, IMHO, but it is an important
case in workers rights.

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

Why does the fact the employer here was in the public sector?
Isn't the law about employer/employee rights?

> Discuss ;)

You asked so I did.

Steve