US waitress sues bar after being forced to wear skimpy uniform

June 28, 2012 | Cinema | Written by

London, June 28: A waitress at a California sportsbar has sued her former employer for unspecified damages, after she was allegedly fired for refusing to slip into a revealing skirt while slinging beers.

Courtney Scaramella has alleged that the outfit was indecent, made her job difficult to perform, and that it objectified her and her coworkers.

The 23-year-old has sued for unspecified damages from O’Hara’s in Westwood, but the bar fired back and said she was never unfairly terminated, she quit.

Scaramella said that she worked at the bar without incident for four years as a happy employee.

Then, new managers took over and replaced her black slacks and blouse uniform with a skimpy plaid skirt.

“It wasn’t fair to me, it wasn’t fair to the other girls who were working there,” the Daily Mail quoted her as telling KTLA.

“Everyone was offended by it. Nobody wanted to do it, but unfortunately, jobs are hard to come by right now and some people were stuck,” she said.

Scaramella said that she tried the skirts on for a few days, but wasn’t comfortable working in them. She was vocal about her disappointment and sent the new owners a letter that detailed her problems with the outfit.

In response to her note, the skirts were dropped, but Scaramella’s hours were drastically reduced and her shifts were changed to less desirable ones, she said.

Three days later, she says she was fired.

“They just can’t treat people like this,” Scaramella told CBS.

“What’s right is right and this was not fair,” she said.

Scaramella and her attorney filed a formal lawsuit against the bar on May 24, demanding unspecified damages for sexual harassment, wrongful termination and unpaid wages.

The skirt, she said, was just the tip of the iceberg.

In addition to wearing ‘embarrassing’ attire, cocktail waitresses were asked to rate female customers on a scale of 1 – 10 and offer free shots to those women that scored a 6 or higher.

The worst offense, however, was that the managers placed a fan below the registers that blew up the mini-skirts the cocktail waitresses were forced to wear.

“She was not fired, she quit,” said the bar’s attorney Roger H. Licht to CBS.

“They plan on fighting this all the way to the end to prove that the claims are baseless,” Licht added. (ANI)