A recent case in the Manchester court of the UK’s Employment Tribunal has raised the issue of compulsory wearing of ties by male employees.

The complainant was an administrative assistant employed in a Jobcentre managed by the Department of Work and Pensions. He was responsible for filing documents, sorting post and other clerical duties, and had no front line customer service role.

In June 2002, a new dress code was brought in, which did not prescribe a uniform but required employees to dress in a ‘professional and businesslike manner’. The new code stated that ‘men should wear a collar and tie. However, ties may be removed in hot weather with management permission. Women should dress appropriately and to a similar standard’.

Although there was some resistance to the new code, it was accepted by the majority of Jobcentre’s 90,000 employees. As the code was implemented, it became clear that female employees continued to dress as they had previously, but there was an increased burden and expectation on male employees.

The complainant refused to wear a collar and tie. He was given an oral warning, and then chose to comply under protest. He then lodged a complaint of sex discrimination against the department, backed by the Public and Commercial Services Union. Following this, over 40 fellow employees lodged similar complaints.

At the Tribunal hearing, the complainant agreed with the respondent that wearing a tie was not in itself onerous, but successfully argued that he had been treated less favourably. He showed photographs of female employees wearing clothes such as t-shirts and football jerseys, and demonstrated that they were not disciplined for wearing less than a ‘businesslike standard’.

The Tribunal found that while employers ‘must be allowed to manage and enforce … a dress code, so that they achieve their goals of corporate identity and/or smartness’, by forcing the applicant to wear a collar and tie, which were sex-specific items of clothing, he had been treated less favourably than his female colleagues.

The Tribunal found that although there can be permissible differences in the workplace between genders, the complainant had suffered two disadvantages as a result of the dress code: he had been forced to wear clothing and accessories he did not want to wear and had had to change his style of dress while his female co-workers did not; and he had been disciplined for breaching a constraint which was only placed on male employees.

The Tribunal awarded the complainant £1,000 compensation for injury to feelings, finding the injury to be at the lower end of the scale. It also recommended that the respondent develop a new dress code requiring the same standard of dress for both men and women. An appeal on the decision is scheduled to be held in October.

Following this case, over 980 Scottish employees of Jobcentre have lodged similar complaints. These cases will be held over until the outcome of the appeal is known.

Thompson v Department of Works and Pensions
Employment Tribunal, UK [2003] 2405602/02