Management Rights - AELE's Home Page

Workplace Rules and Practices 13-10
In contexts other than pubic safety, uniforms and grooming standards are
common workplace practices (especially for hospital employees,
maintenance workers, customer service types of positions, etc.), and are
similarly upheld as long as they are not irrational or unreasonable.
Typically, collective bargaining involving dress codes will focus on cleaning
or uniform allowances. One of the few LRC cases dealing with dress
standards involved a dispute over whether an employer was required
retroactively to pay a cleaning allowance negotiated in a contract. 77 The
LRC determined that where there was no specific agreement to make the
cleaning allowance provision retroactive, and where there had been no
past practice of providing such an allowance, the employer was not
required to pay the retroactive allowance. 78
PRACTICE POINTERS
Chiefs are free to set and enforce hair and grooming standards. This
includes rules concerning beards, mustaches, hair length, sideburns,
visible tattoos, body piercing and jewelry. If no rule currently exists, the
chief should provide the union with notice and opportunity to bargain
before implementing a change. If the rule exists but has not been enforced
for some time or not consistently, the chief need only advise the union and
the employees that he/she intends to start enforcing the rule, giving
sufficient notice so the employees can comply.
Occasionally the growing of beards or long hair is done as a gesture of
defiance or in protest of some actions of the chief or the municipality.
Assuming there was no written rule on the subject, some chiefs have felt
powerless to enforce what they believed was an “unwriten rule” for as
long as they could remember. While the area is not free from doubt, it
would appear that a prompt meeting with the employees involved as well
as with the union would be an appropriate first step. The chief could order
employees to shave and suspend (or so recommend to the appointing
authority) such individuals until they comply. Rather than having a
member be disciplined for insubordination, the union will probably advise
the employee to obey and file a prohibited practice charge at the LRC. The
chief should inform the union in writing that he/she is willing to negotiate
if they so request; however, in the mean time the same status quo which
has existed for years (i.e., beard-free) will be maintained.
To avoid the practical problems likely to result from objectionable tattoos or
visible body piercing, chiefs should promulgate rules before the need
arises. It is simple to order an employee to remove an earring. It is not so
easy to make a tatoo go away from one’s face, neck or forearms.
The decision of what items will be worn on uniforms is a management
right. If union pins start appearing, and the chief objects, he/she may
Commonwealth of Massachusetts