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Duke Law > Duke Law Scholarship Repository > Journals > DJGLP > Vol. 14 > No. 1 (2007)

 

Abstract

In contrast, Renee Gaud and Trisha Hart worked as cocktail servers at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey.8 Unlike Darlene Jespersen, they were union employees represented by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 54, and thus were not at-will workers.9 Gaud, Hart, and other employees objected to a new Borgata policy prohibiting cocktail servers and bartenders from gaining more than seven percent of their body weight as determined by a baseline set when the policy was instituted.10 Gaud and Hart challenged the policy in New Jersey state court on the grounds that it constituted unlawful discrimination against women under New Jersey law.11 However, because Borgata cocktail servers and bartenders are represented by a union, they had another avenue available to challenge Borgata's policy. Second, assuming a union and an employer have successfully executed a collective bargaining agreement, the employer may not modify any provision of that agreement involving a mandatory subject for the life of the contract without the union's consent or a waiver of the union's right to bargain over the issue.17 For example, in Public Service Co.,18 the employer, a utility company, had a collective bargaining relationship for over fifty years with a union representing its electrical and water transmission, distribution, and production employees.19 The most recent agreement provided specifically that union employees were not required to wear uniforms.20 However, without bargaining with the union, the employer announced a new uniform policy that stated in part [w]earing of approved uniform clothing items shall be mandatory as a condition of employment.

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