RIGHTS – Tattoos, body piercings, and hair on your face

It could be fashion. It could be a loud statement of your individuality. It could be both. Fashion and work can collide when your boss isn’t happy with the way you look. But who’s right and what’s fair?

This is one of those tricky issues. Employers can set ‘reasonable dress standards’ but that doesn’t take away their responsibility to treat you fairly.

According to the Equal Opportunity Commission, employers can set a reasonable standard of appearance that suits their industry as long as they don’t discriminate.

An employer is allowed to ask you to remove piercings, cover tattoos, be clean shaven or tie your hair back, so long as all dress codes:
• be applied equally to men and women
• relate to the job
• allow workers to follow their cultural or religious beliefs
• be fair to people with disabilities

An employer must also follow health and safety or food hygiene regulations – this might involve dress codes.

Case Study: Stop pretending: dressing sexy comes with a price

By Miranda Devine, Sydney Morning Herald

Good on Sarah Freeman, the 20-year-old Melbourne assistant store manager who refused to wear the provocative T-shirt her employer provided for her.
Westco Jeans had issued staff the skin-tight, V-neck T-shirts with "Stop Pretending You Don't Want Me" emblazoned across the chest. The accompanying memo instructed: "NO T-shirt equals NO work. Any team member that does not dress correctly will be sent home."
Freeman was sent home last weekend for refusing to wear the T-shirt after a customer made lewd comments and stared at her breasts. "I said, 'Hello'," she told The Age newspaper, "and he said hello to my face, and then he had a good look at my chest and said, 'Well, hell-o', and I ran away."
After a public outcry, the company withdrew the T-shirts. "If you put slogans like that on a T-shirt," the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner said, "you can't expect your staff not to be harassed."

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