The issue?
For women, the main issues were fingernail length and bras. The ruling now allows bosses to force women to cut their fingernails to less than half and a centimeter and gives bosses the authority to ask their female employees to wear bras. An undershirt could be worn in lieu of a bra. The bras must be flesh-colored or neutral enough so that they can’t be seen through shirts. (I’m assuming that topless workers at most kinds of companies are not ok, either.)
German men were affected as well by the unusual ruling and now have to watch that their facial hair doesn’t reach Grizzly Adams lengths as bosses now have the authority to enforce regulations about beard and moustache lengths.
German employees shouldn’t worry too much, however, because not all of their rights have been taken away---German workers still have the right to choose whatever hair color they want and still have the ability to paint their fingernails and toenails in whatever shade happens to strike their fancy.
I think I’m more conservative than most on the whole bra issue and would tend to agree with the court; I’m usually all in favor of getting the girls out, but there’s definitely got to be a time and a place. The fingernails aren’t as issue for me either, but I know several women who live and die by their God-given right to have long and/or fake (I know, I know, I don’t like them either) fingernails and I don’t really see a fingernail length can be that standardized.
As for men’s beards, I think the court should have gone one step further and included regulations about eye brow length (seriously, what’s the deal with some men and their rogue eye brows) and nose hair trimming. If some guy is going to deal with the public, he needs to have the basics of personal grooming down, which means that rogue hairs are definitely out.
Perhaps the court should have included some dental regulations as well. No lettuce in the teeth or something like that. (Since I don’t know German, I can’t check the original ruling. For all I know, there was an actual lettuce amendment in the ruling and it just didn't get translated correctly.)
Image by Will Palmer.