During the year 1969, and to a lesser extent the last half of 1968, a fairly large number of employers, including several AMSA member companies, have raised the above type questions.

The answer to this kind of question, like most everything else in modern day Labor Relations can be "yes, you can do something," or "no, you can't do anything," depending in each case upon a thorough investigation of all the surrounding circumstances, the exact degree of exaggerated personal appearance including dress style that has been adopted by the employee.

To a lesser extent and only noted by certain arbitrators, additional consideration is given if such employee has any contact, as a company employee, with either customers or potential customers of his employer, or even with members of the general public who would immediately relate the "far-out" hair style or dress of a given employee with the "image" of the employer, even without having a customer relationship.

As recently as the end of 1969, this was so according to a nation-wide survey reported on December 23, 1969 in the Wall Street Journal, in The Cleveland Press of December 26, 1969, as well as, no doubt, scores of other major newspaper across the nation. In this survey by the American Society for Personnel Administration and the Bureau of National Affairs, at least 120 out of 150 companies surveyed, continue to currently regard a male applicant's beard "as an adequate reason for not hiring him." The majority of the remaining 30 companies commented that an applicant's beard was a negative factor in rating an applicant prior to the making of a hiring decision.

Ninety of these 150 companies surveyed also stated that all serious applicant consideration would be immediately and totally "turned-off" by any female applicants who reported for a job interview dressed in a mini skirt.

When a male applicant appears for a job interview with both very long hair and/or a beard plus "mod" type clothing, fully 135 companies out of this 150 companies surveyed (90 percent) indicated that any chance of hiring such applicant would be nil.

Although these were sizeable firms contacted in this survey, a significant percentage indicated that they would go so far as to cut off any pretense of serious interview consideration, believing male applicants with mod attire and beards to be so objectionable as not to justify the literal wasting of any further interview time.

Almost this same 90 percent admitted that not only company management but they themselves knew that at least a substantial quantity of the general public-the potential customers of their employer--would find objectionable any employees that wore extremely long hair, heavy beards or so-called hippy or semi-hippy dress in the normal business setting.

At this point the writer feels it has been established that employers and the general public (reference here is to the "Norm" or "Mean-Average") definitely has a strong negative rejection to way-out hair and dress among their employees. This, we are persuaded, is and should be one key factor presented in an arbitration brief, should any employer need to carry his right to discharge such employee offenders this far.

In continuing with this survey's results, it is interesting to note that "longer than normal sideburns" when neatly trimmed, not extremely thick or curly, sometimes such sideburns are referred to as "mutton chops," or other extremely long sideburns which constitute about one-half the facial foliage of a full beard, are tolerated by a somewhat larger number of employers once hired. However, here again they are such a clear negative factor that about three-quarters of the firms surveyed would institute disciplinary action including discharge if employee failed, after warning, to correct his appearance.

Many companies, while not discharging such employees, would eliminate positively and definitely any such employees from all future promotional consideration to better paying company positions where the employer has full control of who receives such better jobs.

By far the least objectionable of all applicant hair styles, according to this survey, were employees, or to some extent applicants also, who wore conventional or even conservative business dress but had small to moderate sized, neat appearing and well-trimmed mustaches. Applicant rejection based on this type of mustache alone was not noted by over 5 percent of the 150 responses to this particular survey.