Dress code is often important for different lines of work, but forcing staff to wear something they can’t take off after their shift ends is problematic. A large body art company in San Diego, California, emailed its employees, requiring them to wear “one glitter tattoo and one henna tattoo” during work hours. Of course, this isn’t as terribly bad as having a permanent tattoo, but it’s nevertheless a huge inconvenience. So much so that an employee of said company has taken to Reddit to question if such a uniform practice is even legal.
“A henna tattoo cannot be removed with any degree of ease, nor in a timely manner, as it works by staining the epidermal layer of your skin,” the San Diego worker explains. It can take up to two weeks for the tattoo to disappear, and it’ll depend on how fast one’s skin layer sheds. As for the glitter tattoo, it can be scrubbed off with alcohol, but doing so will leave the skin tender, not to mention it’s a tedious process. OP complains that a company uniform or dress code requirement should be able to be removed at the end of one’s shift, and these tattoos complicate things:
“I feel that when I clock out, I should be able to remove my uniform. But as these tattoos are being implemented specifically as part of the uniform: they are effectively a part of the uniform that cannot be taken off for a longer period of time than the amount of time before our next shift starts again. Hence, what the company is implementing is that we wear a company tattoo, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, indefinitely..”
“Is this legal? It seems like it shouldn’t be,” they ask Reddit, clearly upset about the whole situation. Of course, ditching the job might be an option, but there’s no telling if OP really enjoys the line of work or really needs to hold on to their position for security and stability reasons. The top commenter agrees that this whole situation is rather challenging to approach and look into since “it’s not something that state legislatures have considered.” The only valid legal issue would be the cost, as Labor Code section 2802 requires a California business to cover such dress code costs, the Redditor states.
“Barring a possible exception for religious accommodations, this is likely correct,” the top replier adds in. Others note that the concept of required tattoos falls into a grey area, such as hair dying or spray tans as uniform requirements. Several other Reddit users recommend that OP consider giving their employer an excuse related to religion or skin allergies. Hopefully, the email was more than a strong suggestion and not an actual requirement. Very few would want to be visibly ‘branded’ by their job, especially when they are off-shift.
