Thompson works for Jobcentre Plus, an agency of the Department of Work and Pensions. His work does not bring him into contact with members of the public. He was required to wear a collar and tie at work as part of a code requiring staff to dress "in a professional and business-like way."
But Thompson complained that this discriminated against men; his female colleagues, after all, were required only to "dress appropriately and to a similar standard".
In a high profile decision last June, an Employment Tribunal agreed, and awarded compensation of £1,000. It found that Thompson had been treated less favourably than female staff at Jobcentre Plus; that this less favourable treatment had been on the ground of his sex; and that Thompson had been treated detrimentally.
The code included examples of unacceptable dress: denim clothing, shorts, lycra leggings, cropped tops, trainers and baseball caps. T-shirts were acceptable, provided that logos were not displayed and any embroidery was tasteful. But it was noted that the requirement for men to wear a collar meant that they could not wear T-shirts at all.
Thompson's male colleagues brought similar claims against their employer, and a staggering 6,950 claims awaited the outcome of an appeal by Jobcentre Plus.
The answer came on 27th November – but while the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) overturned the original ruling, it stopped short of saying that an obligation to wear a tie is not discriminatory. Instead, the original Tribunal's failing was in not considering "the overall context of the code as a whole".
The EAT wrote:
"The issue which the Employment Tribunal should have addressed, therefore, was whether the requirement for male members of staff to wear a collar and tie whereas no particular form of dress was required for female members of staff meant that the male members of staff were being treated less favourably than female members of staff in the context of that overarching requirement which applied to all members of staff. We do not think that the Employment Tribunal addressed that issue."
It continued:
"in the context of the overarching requirement for its staff to dress in a professional and businesslike way, the question for the Employment Tribunal was whether, applying contemporary standards of conventional dresswear, the level of smartness which Jobcentre Plus required of all its staff could only be achieved for men by requiring them to wear a collar and tie."
The EAT has remitted the case to a different Employment Tribunal to decide whether men have to wear a collar and tie in order to achieve the level of smartness which Jobcentre Plus required of both sexes.
The EAT ruling is available here