Work Uniform - Legalities

Shzm

I've been informed that a certain clothing retailer has brought in a new rule that employees must wear clothes sold by the retailer to work. However, they're not being provided for free - the employee must purchase them at a discounted price.

I'm not sure where to start looking up on the laws around work uniforms, but surely forcing employees to purchase their work uniforms like this is illegal?

Corruptedmorals

How is this a revelation? Arcadia (Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy P, Evans, Burton..), River Island, A-Wear, Coast, Reiss....it would be tough to name a high street shop that doesn't practice this. M&S and Dunnes do not...and that's about it out of retailers selling clothes. The standard is that after a certain time period, employees have about a 40% staff discount, the discount for buying uniform clothes is about 60%. I highly doubt it's illegal.

watna

Shzm wrote: »

I've been informed that a certain clothing retailer has brought in a new rule that employees must wear clothes sold by the retailer to work. However, they're not being provided for free - the employee must purchase them at a discounted price.

I'm not sure where to start looking up on the laws around work uniforms, but surely forcing employees to purchase their work uniforms like this is illegal?

I worked in a clothes store all through college. We had to wear clothes from that store and had a uniform allowance i.e. we got 75% off the price of clothes up to a certain value. We usually ended up getting 3 outfits every three months. We could also wear other things we bought at staff discount if we wanted (33% off) but we had to wear clothes from that store.

I thought it was common practive and all stores did it. I don't think it's illegal. Nobody minded at all where I worked because you only had to pay 25% of the cost of the clothes and you got to keep them. I still wear a few of the things I bought with my uniform allowance when I worked there.

seamus

If it's not stated in your contract of employment that you must wear clothing sold by your employer, then they cannot force you to do so.

There's nothing illegal about having employees buy their own work clothes from work - I know BT2 in Grafton St has the same policy - but it must be a condition of employment which you have agreed to. They cannot force you to do something you haven't agreed to do and they cannot fire you for not agreeing to it.

Shzm

Cool, never said it was a revelation. I've never worked in retail in my life, let alone a clothing store, so I have no idea how it works.

Just seems strange to me that the store is able to profit off forcing employees to buy their clothing.

I don't think anyone in this company actually has a contract, so by them bringing this in with no notice etc they'd be on shaky grounds to actually enforce it?

Eoin

seamus wrote: »

If it's not stated in your contract of employment that you must wear clothing sold by your employer, then they cannot force you to do so.

There's nothing illegal about having employees buy their own work clothes from work - I know BT2 in Grafton St has the same policy - but it must be a condition of employment which you have agreed to. They cannot force you to do something you haven't agreed to do and they cannot fire you for not agreeing to it.

But they can put it in their HR policies which are subject to change.

seamus

eoin wrote: »

But they can put it in their HR policies which are subject to change.

It's a grey area. Where the HR policy detrimentally affects the financial affairs of the employee, I doubt the "subject to change" clause could be enforced.

Mr. Presentable

Shzm wrote: »

Cool, never said it was a revelation. I've never worked in retail in my life, let alone a clothing store, so I have no idea how it works.

Just seems strange to me that the store is able to profit off forcing employees to buy their clothing.

I don't think anyone in this company actually has a contract, so by them bringing this in with no notice etc they'd be on shaky grounds to actually enforce it?

It'd be a fairly poor profit if any

If you are less than six months with a company they can release you without penalty. This may be their leverage.

wmpdd3

The uniform allowance is usually seen as a perk! With one company I had €800 of clothing every season for €200. I was there for 4 years, €6400 worth of clothes, still have most of them. It was in our handbook that you had to wear the clothes we sold, with strict specifications in the event that you wore a fringe size or maternity.

watna

wmpdd3 wrote: »

The uniform allowance is usually seen as a perk! With one company I had €800 of clothing every season for €200. I was there for 4 years, €6400 worth of clothes, still have most of them. It was in our handbook that you had to wear the clothes we sold, with strict specifications in the event that you wore a fringe size or maternity.

I saw it as a perk too. I would have bought clothes there anyway and this way I got them for 25% of the price.