Grounded for Cosmetic Reasons

By ELIZABETH MEHREN

May 27, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

BOSTON — Does life for working women in late 20th-Century America reduce to nothing more than a tube of mascara, a smear of blusher, a smile from freshly painted lips?

For Teresa Fischette, the philosophical implications of cosmetic embellishment have never been a concern--not even when she was fired from her job as a Continental Airlines ticket agent for failing to uphold the company’s new 45-page appearance code by refusing to wear makeup.

“You’re fine the way you are,” said Fischette, 38. “You have to start from there.”

It’s not that Fischette made a conscious decision not to wear makeup. It was not something she thought about, fought about or ever talked about. No customer ever raised an eyebrow; her first husband never mentioned the subject; and Pat Marz, her current spouse, thinks she is gorgeous.

“I wish I had something more lofty to say about this,” Fischette said.

But she had quite a bit to say when her part-time job at Logan International Airport was terminated by Continental earlier this month. The company had instituted a mandatory makeup policy for “customer contact” employees. Fischette and the airline engaged in a flurry of telephone calls and letters. “I thought, ‘Where does company prerogative step over the bounds into personal choice?’ ”

Her efforts eventually paid off--with her reinstatement--but initially, the airline stuck to its new guidelines. In a May 1 “personal appearance evaluation,” Fischette won top marks on all counts including “footwear maintenance.” But on “facial grooming” she was deemed “not acceptable.”

“Terri . . . it is our decision to terminate your employment as an airport sales agent . . . for insubordination,” Robert Watson, manager of Continental customer service in Boston, wrote Fischette in a letter of intent to terminate, also dated May 1.

She was officially fired two days later.

Fischette contacted the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, a list of media personalities that included Oprah Winfrey (on whose show she appeared) and a public relations consultant who specialized in working with nonprofit organizations.

Hours before she was actually fired, when the lipstick-writing on the wall became clear, she made a last-ditch effort at compromise by writing to Hollis Harris, the chief executive officer and president of Houston-based Continental Airlines, which is in Chapter 11.

An 11-year veteran of the airline industry, Fischette told Harris she had never worn makeup, “during my entire professional career or personally.”

She explained: “My decision in this matter comes from a deep conviction that this policy of requiring, rather than encouraging, women to wear makeup and lipstick is not only unnecessary but discriminatory toward women. I, along with many others, feel that a woman’s professional appearance does not depend on or have to include wearing makeup and lipstick. I feel that the company certainly has a right to have a uniform code, and certainly has a right to have appearance standards, but I feel that wearing makeup and lipstick should be a personal choice, not grounds for termination.”

On May 10, Fischette’s lawyer from the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, Sarah Wunsch, received a letter from Continental stating that it stood by its decision to end her employment. On May 14, Jay Leno performed a skit making fun of the airline’s position on the “Tonight” show. The rash of national media reports apparently caught Continental’s attention.

On May 15, the airline announced that it had changed its mind. Fischette flew to Houston the next day to meet with Harris, who offered a personal apology for the incident.

Some airlines do include makeup guidelines in the contracts of their flight attendants, Wunsch said. But in recent years there has been little effort to enforce these measures, the lawyer added. In uniform regulations for “customer contact” employees like Fischette, makeup has seldom been the subject of argument, she said.

A vegetarian for most of her adult life, Fischette had a long background as an animal-rights’ activist. But while impassioned on that subject, Fischette is not the type to engage in late-night laboratory raids or to throw paint on people who wear fur coats. Her position is always based on negotiation, compromise and, ultimately, on tolerance, she said. Her husband hunts ducks and brings them home to clean, for example, “and that’s fine, as long as he doesn’t leave any duck parts in the hall.”

Reaching that kind of an understanding “is my thing,” Fischette said, “finding non-confrontational common ground.”

In any kind of negotiation, even about makeup, she contended (unaware that she was about to make a pun), “you can always find face-saving areas.” That is why Continental’s initial insistence of sticking to the letter of its new regulations seemed so absurd to her.

“It just didn’t make any sense to me that they could be so rigid,” she said.

Fischette said she truly loves her job as a ticket agent. Her flexible hours allow her to devote time to volunteer projects, particularly animal-rights work. And she said she takes pride in doing a good job, that employee evaluations report consistently that she is friendly and cheerful in what is often a stressful environment.

“I’ll tell you one thing, my smile goes a lot further than anything I put on my face,” Fischette said.

But her imbroglio with Continental has caused her to think hard about problems of women in the workplace, Fischette said, issues she had previously given little heed. She said Continental has granted her a four-week unpaid leave of absence in which she will volunteer for 9 to 5, a Cleveland-based nonprofit organization that monitors topics of concern to working women.

A spokesman for Continental said the airline would have no comment.

Fischette said several of her colleagues had urged her “just to wear a little blusher” and avoid the whole cosmetic contretemps. “Or they said, ‘lie. Tell them you’re wearing lipstick. They’ll never know the difference.’ ”

But Fischette said she told those co-workers as well as Hollis Harris himself that she was acting in the spirit of the company’s new slogan.

“One employee can make a difference,” Fischette said the new motto declares.

To which Teresa Fischette, an employee who made a difference, gave a great big lipstick-free grin.