Haunting echo in dress row

By CHRIS DANIELS

Christine Rankin once gave evidence against an Auckland social welfare worker sacked for not wearing official corporate dress.

The worker, who wants to be identified only as "Maria," fought an ultimately unsuccessful three-year battle to get her job back at Income Support Service after she was sacked for not wearing the approved corporate uniform.

Christine Rankin, then a senior manager in Income Support, was called to give evidence about how the official departmental wardrobe standard was applied.

Maria says her clothes were thought to be too casual, too colourful - not in keeping with the conservative, dark-coloured, corporate wardrobe of the Income Support Service, which later merged with the Employment Service to become Work and Income New Zealand (Winz).

"I've seen her on the tele and thought, 'Wow, that takes me back'," said Maria. "I know what that woman's going through now, because I've been there.

"It's her turn in court now ... Someone else didn't like her style."

Maria's lawyer, Syd Jackson, said it was hypocritical for Mrs Rankin to say she is offended at criticism of her attire when she did exactly the same thing just six years ago.

Employment Tribunal adjudicator John Haslemore's 1997 decision makes it quite clear that the enforcement of a dress code was behind Maria's job loss.

"Problems between [Maria] and Income Support Services began in 1994. In October 1994, she was told that her standard of dress at work was inappropriate."

The background to Maria's problems began in 1992 when Income Support began to emphasis dress code and a corporate wardrobe, said the adjudicator.

By 1994, Income Support began to insist "that employees wear clothes to work within its clothing policy."

"[Maria] said she wore clothing which was suitable and appropriate for her duties. She considered that to be at least equivalent to the corporate wardrobe," said Mr Haslemore.

"Other staff at her office chose not to purchase clothing from the wardrobe yet they were not subjected to the same kind of harassment as she was."

In another parallel with the Christine Rankin case, Maria told the Weekend Herald that the real reason for her dismissal was not a lack of adherence to the corporate dress code but rather that management wanted her position abolished.

"One instance was a cardigan that I thought was quite nice and I liked - it had quite a lot of colour, nice knitted colour, but they thought that was way too casual."

Maria failed in her bid to get her job back, with the tribunal finding that Income Support had the right to introduce and enforce a dress code.

A spokeswoman for Winz said the Income Support corporate wardrobe had not been carried forward into the new, merged organisation.

She said Winz required its workers to dress in an appropriate and professional manner.