Provision

7. General

7.1 Uniforms and other items of identification shall be issued to employees free of charge when there is a requirement for identification of employees. There are four distinguishing conditions under which identification of the employee may be required:

1. when identification of the employee is required by management to provide a sign of vested authority in directing, inspecting or enforcing specific laws and regulations;
2. when identification of the employee is required by management to provide an appropriate identification of the employee's function;
3. when identification of the employee is required by management, either permanently or in an emergency, to control emergency equipment and direct persons during an emergency. Such employees must be readily identifiable by the local public;
4. when identification of an employee's authority is required by management to access and work in a secure area. (Identification clothing may supplement the primary form of identification.)

7.2 Items of wearing apparel of the same pattern or material or colour are supplied free of charge for the following purposes:

• for occupational identification and worn as required by local management;
• for image distinctiveness and worn uniformly throughout a sector in accordance with orders.

7.3 Regular shoes of a specific type or colour, which serve only to provide co-ordination with clothing, are not considered essential to identify the employee. Departments shall not provide regular shoes free of cost, nor shall they demand that employees wear specific types or colours of shoes. Departments may, however, specify that the footwear be of a type generally considered as acceptable and to co-ordinate with the uniforms provided.

7.4 Departments may, however, utilize the provisions of 12.2 to make such footwear available to employees for purchase at cost.

7.5 Bulletins shall be issued to employees when the wearing of uniform clothing is required. Such bulletins normally will identify and enumerate clothing commodities, state the employee's responsibility for clothing received and specify the manner of accounting for clothing when the employee is no longer eligible to receive or retain it (e.g. on promotion, demotion, separation or due to a change in working conditions)

7.6 Normally, clothing which is issued to employees shall be worn only on duty and will not be worn away from the workplace. When employees are provided with specific items of clothing for wear on duty, substitute items shall not be worn. Clothing which is issued to employees may be worn in public to travel to and from work when the safe storage of personal clothing is not possible.

7.7 When, as a condition of employment, an employee receives any item of clothing as an individual issue, that employee will be expected to wear and maintain it in a clean, pressed and repaired condition, in accordance with departmental directives and in accordance with care labels permanently attached to each garment.