FUNDAMENTAL DIGNITY AS A MALE

(St. John's, Newfoundland) Grocery clerk Steven Janes recently was fired from his job at PriceChopper because he refused to remove his earrings. The company has a policy that males are prohibited from having them.

Janes, who has his left ear pierced twice, had sported two small, gold hoops in his ear every day since he was hired. The 23-year-old says his jewelry never posed a problem - until recently, when the Sobeys outlet where he worked was converted into Price Chopper, its sister supermarket chain.

Janes feels the company is in the wrong for making him choose between his principles and his job.

"I was so shocked when they approached me, especially since I've worked there for so long with my earrings in and had absolutely no complaints, from customers or staff," Janes said.

"Most of the staff didn't even realize I wore earrings until all this happened. They're discriminating against me, and it's not right."

Janes stated that he plans to take his case to higher powers. Unfortunately, the legal counsel for the province's Human Rights Commission, Mr. Barry Fleming, stated that similar cases have surfaced in the past and there is probably not much that can be done.

"There has to be some evidence that wearing an earring goes with his fundamental dignity as a male," he said. [This is a memorable line. - ed.]

"Generally, the Human Rights Commission doesn't get involved with complaints on the basis of dress code, because they don't really bring into play the higher-level dignity issues that arrive with discrimination generally."

Janes said he plans to continue his fight since times have changed and he doesn't think that males wearing earrings is a problem.

This whole story is a conflict that exists between a capricious adolescent fashion trend and established corporate employee appearance policy. Janes states he's not going to compromise his principles so he loses his job. What principles? The right to be stupid? What a dummy! How hard would it be to take out his earrings while working and then put the things back in when he got off.

I posted a similar story several months ago where a young waitress, Karen Ketola, was fired from a restaurant because she displayed a visible tattoo. She and Janes are two young people who got caught up with the latest trends of MTV or Hollywood and they fail to realize that following the trend may impact their employability. In the case of Janes, all he has to do is remove his earrings. Karen Ketola will have a more difficult time.