Last week (18 December) the press picked up on the industrial tribunal case of a woman who claims she was sacked for refusing to wear a revealing red cocktail dress in her job as a waitress at a posh London restaurant. The press interest was do with the fact that Fata Lemes is a Muslim (originally from Bosnia).
Was this a clash of values between the liberal secular "west" and repressive religious views?
This case is nothing of the sort. It is about the right of workers to go about their jobs free from unwanted and unexpected sexual attention, free from harassment; it is about the right of workers to feel safe and comfortable in their jobs. Workers like Fata Lemes should have our support for that reason. The tribunal decision is due early in 2009.
Fata Lemes says she was propositioned for sex by customers of the Rocket bar in Mayfair and that the "indecent" figure-hugging scarlet outfit she was given to wear after she started work made her look "like a sex club hostess".
While some women may choose to go for figure-hugging outfits or working in a sex club, that was not what Fata Lemes bargained for when she took the job at £5.52 per hour (plus tips), serving nobby clients expensive food and drink. Worse, she felt her bosses were indicating to guests that the staff were available for sex.
As well as being extraordinarily badly paid, bar and restaurant work can be extremely difficult and demoralising. The bosses are often rude and intimidating bullies, and the clients, with alcohol inside them, can be no better or worse. Along with many other daily indignities staff are often "encouraged" and then cajoled into "looking sexy" etc in order to "add value" to the drinking/eating experience.
If you don't want to dress "sexily", for whatever reason, and there can be any number or reasons, then you should not have to. And no worker, in any job (including sex work) should have to put up with unwanted sexual advances.
Unions often (rightly) focus on the appalling pay of workers but they also need to get to grips with these kinds of daily indignities, bullying and harassment.