“ California law allows employers to require its employees to wear uniforms as a condition of employment. Employers may prescribe the weight, color, texture, style, form, and make of uniforms required to be worn by their employees.”
Q: I WORK at a clothing store in California as an hourly employee. Our employer requires us to wear clothes the store is selling, which are quite expensive and we have to pay for ourselves. We are also ordered to follow the company’s very strict grooming and appearance requirements. What are our rights in this situation?
A: California law allows employers to require its employees to wear uniforms as a condition of employment. Employers may prescribe the weight, color, texture, style, form, and make of uniforms required to be worn by their employees. However, the law states that if employers require its hourly employees to wear uniforms as a condition of employment, the employer should either provide the uniforms, or reimburse the employees for the cost of buying the uniforms.
The term “uniform” is defined to include wearing apparel and accessories of distinctive design or color (excluding legally required protective clothing). Examples are tuxedos, skirts, blouses, and jackets of specific style, color, and quality. White shirts and dark pants or skirts are generally not considered uniforms if they are a general ordinary type of street clothing, and the employer does not require any specific style, quality or material. Employers do not have to pay for uniforms generally usable in the employee’s occupation, such as nurses’ white uniforms and black and white uniforms of unspecified design worn by wait staff since these persons can generally wear such uniforms wherever they work. On the other hand, the employer must provide or pay for uniforms if the employer requires that a specific color be worn.
If employers require uniforms, they should also pay for the maintenance of the uniforms. If the employer does not choose to maintain the employees’ uniform itself, the employer must pay the employee a weekly maintenance allowance of an hour’s pay at the state minimum wage rate in lieu of maintaining the uniforms, assuming an hour is a realistic estimate of the time involved in maintaining the uniforms.
Though employers may reasonably require employees to maintain uniforms made of fabrics requiring minimal care (washing and tumble or drip drying), the employer must maintain or pay for the maintenance of uniforms if these uniforms require ironing, dry cleaning, or separate laundering.
But what if the employer does not exactly say there is a uniform but tells its employees to, instead, wear the clothes that the company is selling? Should the company provide these clothes to its employees free of charge? This is what a group of Abercrombie & Fitch employees is suing on.
Alexander Brown and Arik Silva worked as retail sales associates at Abercrombie & Fitch Co., a company that operates retail clothing stores throughout the United States, including over 100 stores in California. Brown and Silva sued their employer in a class action, claiming, among other things, that the employer failed to reimburse them for business expenses spent on Abercrombie clothes, and that the company compelled them to patronize Abercrombie products in violation of California law.
The employees claim that their employer compelled and coerced them to patronize Abercrombie stores and purchase Abercrombie clothing. The employees state that Abercrombie coerced their employees into purchasing “AAA clothing” for two reasons: first, Abercrombie wanted to make profits from those purchases, and second, Abercrombie wanted their employees to wear AAA clothing as a marketing strategy so that the employees would effectively act as walking advertisements for Abercrombie. The employees argue that Abercrombie’s requirement that employees wear its specific brand of clothing and footwear, in order to satisfy Abercrombie’s “Look Policy,” essentially constitutes a requirement that employees wear a “uniform.” Because of this, the employees argue that Abercrombie should have reimbursed employees for the expense of those uniforms.
In mid-July of this year, the court hearing the case granted the employees’ request that the case be certified as a class so that they could proceed to trial as a class. Over 60,000 employees may potentially recover reimbursements if the employees win their case.
Employees who pay the expenses to comply with their company “dress code” would be smart to consult with an employment attorney to find out whether their employer should be paying for these costs instead.
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The Law Offices of C. Joe Sayas, Jr. welcomes inquiries about this topic. All inquiries are confidential and at no-cost. Atty. Sayas’ Law Office is located at 500 N. Brand Blvd. Suite 980, Glendale, CA 91203. You can contact the office at (818) 291-0088 or visit www.joesayaslaw.com.
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C. Joe Sayas, Jr., Esq. is trial attorney who has obtained several million dollar recoveries for his clients against employers and insurance companies. He has been selected as a Super Lawyer by the Los Angeles Magazine, featured in the cover of Los Angeles Daily Journal’s Verdicts and Settlements, and is a member of the Million Dollar-Advocates Forum.