Woman claims she was fired for wearing skirt

by The Associated Press

GALLATIN, Tenn. - A Pentecostal woman who says wearing pants is against her religion is suing to get her job back at an automotive plant where she says she was fired for wearing a dress to work.

Charlene McCormick said her firing violated the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. She also wants back pay and unspecified damages.

"We believe you have to dress holy and look holy and walk daily with God. We believe (wearing pants is) a sin, and the Bible says it's an abomination," said McCormick, a member of the Pentecostal Holiness denomination.

According to her lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Nashville, McCormick was working for TAD Staffing Services in April 1996 when she was sent to work as a machine operator at the Robert Bosch Corp. in Hendersonville, Tenn.

A few days into the assignment, her supervisor sent her home, saying her dress was a safety hazard that might get caught in the machinery.

McCormick was assigned to another task in a different department of the plant, but the personnel director saw her wearing a dress and instructed the temporary agency to fire her, the lawsuit said.

Representatives of TAD Staffing Services' Gallatin office could not be reached for comment Monday. A call to the Redwood, Calif., corporate headquarters of Adecco Employment Services, the company that has since bought TAD Staffing Services, was not returned to The Tennesseean.

Becky MacDonald, spokeswoman for the Broadview, Ill.-based Robert Bosch Corp., said the company doesn't comment on pending lawsuits.

Copyright © 1998 The Seattle Times Company

Posted at 06:00 a.m. PDT; Wednesday, July 1, 1998