Bosses order women to wear bras to work-Germany

Wunderbra! Court rules German bosses can order women to wear bras to work

By ALLAN HALL
Last updated at 5:48 PM on 12th January 2011

Dressing for the office: German bosses can order women workers to wear bras but they must be white or flesh-coloured to avoid being see-through

A court in Germany ruled today  that bosses have the right to order female employees to wear bras in the workplace.

Furthermore, the length of a lady’s fingernails can also be determined by her immediate superiors and hair must be clean and groomed.

Men can sport beards, but the boss has a right to order it to be kept well trimmed and not become a Robinson Crusoe castaway version.

The State Labour Court in North Rhine-Westphalia was ruling on a case involving the dress and grooming habits of airport security personnel.

But its decisions will apply to all workplaces in the most populous state in Germany.

'Being told to wear a bra and to keep fingernails to shorter than half-a-centimetre does not impinge on personal rights,' ruled the court in Cologne.

'It is not a disproportionate impairment of personal rights.'

Bras - white or flesh coloured only because the court said bright colours should not 'shine through' - could be dispensed with, the court ruled, if the female was wearing an undershirt.

The ruling applied to a security company carrying out passenger checks at airports in the state, particularly the major hub Cologne-Bonn.

Employees had said the criteria were too harsh, but the court found in favour of the company rulebook.

The only victory the workers scored was that companies do not have the right to ban certain shades of hair colour or nail polish and that wigs - banned under the rulebook of the security personnel - may be worn.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1346520/Court-rules-German-bosses-order-women-wear-bras-work.html#ixzz1AvSRXfI6