Union yes, tattoo no

In Illinois, workers at five Commonwealth Edison nuclear plants were escorted off the job more than 50 times during the last week in August when they showed up for duty with a temporary union tattoo affixed to their hands or other body parts. The workers are allowed to wear shirts, buttons and bandannas with the union logo, but the tattoos -- simply replicas of the buttons -- were deemed to be too "distracting" to allow in the plants. As a result, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now monitoring the safety of the plants because the ban on union tattoos is causing a shortage of certified control room workers.

Earlier this month, the police department at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville said it wouldn't hire Sean McClearey because he has tattoos. According to a university spokesman, the tattoos could make McClearey ineffective as a police officer if the campus community finds the tattoos repulsive. McClearey offered to wear a long-sleeve shirt year-round to cover the tattoos on his arms, but the university refused, saying that shorts and short sleeves would be required for officers on bike patrol. McClearey is considering a suit against the school.

Tattoo discrimination?

In May, a Texas appeals court reinstated a case filed by a white police officer that is alleging that his black supervisor discriminated against him and terminated him based on his race. (Greathouse v. Alvin Independent Sch. Dist., (Tex. Ct. App.) No. 01-99-00746-CV, 5/4/00). In ruling for the plaintiff, the court noted that the supervisor "wears a tattoo signifying African-American supremacy." The tattoo, along with other evidence, "raises a genuine issue of material fact concerning whether [the] stated, non-discriminatory reasons for terminating Greathouse were merely a pretext to cover up underlying racial motivation," the court said.

Be a professional

Dawn Waldrop, workplace image consultant and author of Best Impressions: How to Gain Professionalism, Promotion and Profit, a book containing a chapter on tattoos, tells HRWire that tattoos are becoming a bigger issue as the number of Americans opting for a tattoo grows. Roughly one in 10 Americans are tattooed, according to industry estimates, and tattooing businesses are springing up all over to keep up with the demand. Waldrop says the workplace is affected because it's not just young people who are getting tattoos. "The average person getting tattooed is a professional man or woman between the ages of 35 and 50," she says.

Waldrop tells her clients who want tattoos to consider putting them somewhere where they can easily be covered. Notwithstanding the decision of Southern Illinois University to reject the job candidate's offer to cover up his tattoos, most employers find tattoos acceptable as long as they are appropriately covered when necessary. The rules for coverage obviously will vary by position -- an employee in constant contact with the public or clients will need to be more circumspect than a web designer who never interacts with clients or customers, for example.

Tattoo Regulations

What can employers legally require of employees that have tattoos? In general, employers are free to regulate the display of tattoos as long as they do not run afoul of rules prohibiting discrimination on the basis of age, sex, religion, disability and so on. State and municipal laws may vary, but there is no federal law limiting employers' ability to consider tattoos and other appearance-related issues when making employment decisions.

Suggestions for avoiding workplace conflict over tattoos include:

• Develop a written dress code and appearance policy that covers the display of tattoos. The policy should be reasonable, and the focus should be on job-related regulations. Limiting the display of tattoos when interacting with customers and clients is likely to be seen by employees as an acceptable practice; on the other hand, limiting the display of tattoos when there is no public contact may be viewed as controlling and intrusive. Kerry Horton, public relations professional with three tattoos that shared her tattoo-related work experiences with HRWire, says "I think the trick for HR managers is to make it clear to employees that having tattoos in the workplace is acceptable as long as they are not on blatant display."
  
  
• Evenly enforce the rules governing tattoo display. Applying the rules haphazardly will create confusion and resentment. If the policy is that no tattoos can be displayed, enforce it for all employees, not just those that have scary or disconcerting tattoos.
  
  
• Make sure your policy does not run afoul of discrimination laws. A Los Angeles hotel recently settled a racial discrimination case in which the owner of the hotel fired a number of non-white employees with tattoos, saying their tattoos made them look "too ethnic."
  
  
• Consider using an employee committee to draft appearance regulations. With the help of employees, the Kenosha Hospital and Medical Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin, recently put together a tough new appearance code that includes a ban on tattoos. The employees based the code on the strict dress code standard used by the Disney Institute in Florida. By involving employees in the code formulation, conflict over the terms of code was significantly reduced.
  
  
• View tattoos as part of valuing employees' individuality. Jeff Gores, an account executive with a high-tech public relations firm in Oregon who has visible tattoos when he wears short sleeves, tells HRWire that "my employer has been great and understanding, even going so far as promoting my individuality."
  
  
• Consider the available labor pool before making policies that are too restrictive. In today's labor market, talented employees are difficult to find and some employers are lowering their appearance standards in order to accommodate more unconventional looks. In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, amusement park operators, desperate for employees to staff their seasonal operations, relaxed their appearance rules to allow tattoos and other formerly restricted "accessories" in order to hire enough workers to operate efficiently.