Macy's dress code leads to workers' grievance

By LaMont Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A decision by Macy's to require all employees to wear black has a lot of workers seeing red, and the union that represents workers at the Downtown Pittsburgh store has filed a grievance to rescind the new dress code.

The new dress code is to take effect Sept. 4 at all 113 stores in the nine-state Midwest division.

Macy's spokesman Nathan Shore said the change will make it easier for customers to identify store employees, as has happened in other divisions that have already implemented a black dress code.

But the new policy violates a contract provision and the National Labor Relations Act, argued Thomas R. Scheid, a union representative for the Pittsburgh office of the Allegheny Regional Joint Board Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union, which represents workers at the Downtown store.

In a July 9 grievance letter to Kim Bass, Macy's Midwest manager of labor relations, Mr. Scheid wrote that the new dress code "will result in significant out-of-pocket expense to members of Local 101 and in some of the commission departments, it is likely to result in diminished sales for the Company and diminished earnings for Local 101's members."

First published on July 18, 2007 at 1:26 pm