You are not a lawyer and if you are, you are not my lawyer nor anyone else reading this.
What can a business owner require of an employee under federal and state laws (I realize there are 50 states and there for 50 answers for state laws).
Can a business owner require that every employee (including women) shave their head completely bald in order to work there? What if it’s the Chief of police or Sheriff of the county? Can they have a policy that every officer/deputy has a shaved head regardless of sex?
Can a business owner require that all employees pierce their genitals? Or get tattoos? Can a tattoo parlor insist that all of it’s employees be tattooed? Can a "gentlemen " club require that their dancers show their privates?
If an employee claims a religion exemption, how hard can an employer push to make the worker prove their eligibility for the exemption?
If someone has a small business in which their only employees are their wife and children, can their kids sue them for sexual harassment because they were passionately kissing their wife in front of them during business hours?
1.) An employer is allowed to require you to shave your head or any other part of the body. Think of the military. I’ve heard that (male) Navy recruits lose all their hair the first day. Also, I work in a chemical plant. I’m required to have no facial hair so that I can wear a respirator in an emergency. If I forget to shave, the guards will give me a razor and go tell me to shave. This really only applies to men, but if there were women with facial hair they wouldn’t be excepted. If you don’t like the policy then you don’t have to work there. They don’t force you to shave.
2.) Same thing with tattoos and piercings. It is OK to discriminate on this. UPS drivers are not allowed to have visible tattoos. Soldiers in the military aren’t allowed to have them wear the uniform won’t cover it, like on the hands or face. They wouldn’t let my cousin into the Coast Guard because of this. I’ve never heard of anyone requiring tattoos, but I assume that you could. Again, if it is a private organization and you don’t like the requirements then you don’t have to work there. They’re not forcing you to get a tattoo.
3.) If a dancer doesn’t show her “privates” she won’t make any money.
4.) I don’t know too much about the religion one. Sounds like it would have to be interpreted by a judge on a case by case basis.
5.) Pubic displays of affection are considered sexual harassment. The kids could make a case for it, but a judge could always throw it out.
I would be inclined to think that you could require any kind of ridiculous dress or body modification within reason as long as that was stated up front as a condition of working at the establishment and wasn’t otherwise illegal or violated some already existing ordinance/public safety issue. That is, I doubt you would be allowed to require everyone to wear billowing clothing while working in a machine shop. I assume you cannot suddenly require this after someone takes the job.
Along those lines though, I wonder what happens if the company changes businesses after you are already hired, or if the modifications cause you undue harm should you be fired/laid off. That is, what if LeidenFrost started at the factory manufacturing certain parts/chemicals/whatever of an innocuous nature, grew a beard he was quite fond of, then suddenly was asked to shave it because a change in the business required the ability to wear a respirator for safety because they now produce a product with some risks involved? Likewise, if I want a job at a tattoo shop, and they require me to get a tattoo on my face to prove how much I want to work there, what happens if I agree to it, but then get fired two months later for incompetence? Let’s presume that I really can’t get another job anywhere else because of my incompetence, but I blame it on the face tattoo. Now what?
An employer can pretty much do whatever it whats PROVIDED (and this is a big IF), if they can prove that is needed.
The poster that gave shaving was a great example.
But as the OP noted, laws differ from state to state. I was in H/R and I was shocked to learn a woman who was in sales at a hotel in Illinois, the director of H/R told her to wear perfume. There was no medical reason for her NOT wanting to do it, she just didn’t want to do it.
She actually lost her court case. The court ruled the employer could require a lady or man to wear cologne. It also said, anything required by the employer would have to be provided by the employer if it was specific enough.
That blows my mind, I mean it’s not like the lady wasn’t clean and bathed and such, she just didn’t want to wear perfume.
For religion, an employer must make RESONABLE accommodation. A Muslim woman wearing a full burqa covering her totally might not be allowed if she had a job serving the public. But if she was in an office where she didn’t interact with anyone or just used the phone, she’d be more likely to be able to request it and get away with wearing it.
In a “right to work” state, employment is at will. Absent a contract that includes any specific terms of employment or makes any guarantees of employment, an employer can fire an employee for any reason, or even for no reason at all. The only exceptions would be terminations found to be discriminatory against a member of a protected class.
The flip side of it is that an employee can quit a job at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. You’re not required to give notice; neither is your employer. Again, contracts often cover this stuff, so it’s not in practice the case for every job even in such a state.
But, that “protected class” stuff can create some gray area. If an employer told you that you have to shave your head, then fired you if you did not… that might be OK. He doesn’t have to employ you if he doesn’t want to. But if you’re a male and he isn’t requiring females to shave their heads, you may be able to substantiate a bias claim.
Shaving the head would be a problem for Orthodox Jews and for Sikhs, and both would be protected classes. (And there are probably other religious groups for that requirement.) However, in most parts of the U.S. they are such a small minority that it’s very unlikely to be an issue.
No, no no. You’re confusing “right to work” with “at-will.” I’m an at-will employee in a state that’s definitely, definitely, not right-to-work (Michigan).
Most states are at-will. It means that (from Wikipedia), “any hiring is presumed to be ‘at will’; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals ‘for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all,’ and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work.”
But even at will states (all of them, including right to work states) can have contracts that override the above.
Right-to-work states mean that if you work in a union shop, you’re not forced to pay union dues. In a non-right-to-work-state, you cannot be forced to join the union, but you can be forced to pay union dues (called “agency fees” which are a tiny, slight discount over the normal union dues).
Having worked for half of the “Big 4” accounting firms, I’ve been required to pay off loans immediately if they were owed to a client and liquidate all investments in them in order to maintain my “Independence.” Looked at from some angles, that’s a funny word to use.
Few if any dancers are employees. They are mostly private concessionaires that pay a fairly high nightly fee + tips for DJs, bouncers, etc. for the privilege of being allowed to ply their trade and solicit table/lap dances. The stage dances earn them nothing but notice.
Let’s revisit my example of a man who employs his wife/kids at his business.
Has there ever been a case of someone suing their parent for sexual harassment for kissing their spouse or some other (nonsexual) form of affection in front of them. In this crazy world I’ll bet someone something like this.
In terms of sexual harassment there are two broad type.
First is quid pro quo sexual harassment, which is basically something for something.
If you have sex with me, I won’t fire you. Or I’ll give you a raise, if you sleep with me.
It’s very easy to define and it’s usually a level 3 write up, meaning that you get fired the first time. There’s no progressive displinary action.
What the above question poses is more difficult, it’s in the umbrella of sexual harassment, and it’s called creating a hostile working environment.
Here’s the thing a unpleasent working environement IS NOT a hostile working environment. A hostile working environment is one that causes a person so much stress a person cannot peform his job correctly and that stress effects them outside the workplace as well.
So in poster’s scenario the child would have to sue for creating a hostile working environment.
And this leads to a whole slew of issues. To win a lawsuit for creating a hostile working environment is very difficult. First of all you have to prove the employer knew of the problem, the problem was addressed, the “victim” was given a remedy, and the company still failed to act.
It would be a very interesting topic for lawyers in employment law to debate, though in real life I imagine it’d be handled a different way