Sex(y?) Discrimination in Vegas

Thanks to Ruben Garcia for passing along this link to Ann McGinley's Slate article What Happened in Vegas? Why are Las Vegas bartenders now mostly women?.  Here's an excerpt:

A decade ago about 80 to 85 percent of nightclub bartenders were men; today women represent about 60 percent of the club bartenders. [A similar dynamic is occurring with card dealers.] 

Men could apply for jobs as cocktail servers either on the casino floors or in the nightclubs, but cocktailing, unlike bartending, is traditionally a woman’s job and continues to remain that way. * * * Even in lean economic times, men generally don’t apply for cocktail positions. This is somewhat surprising given that cocktail jobs are well-paid, especially at the high-end casinos. Although the hourly wage is not much to talk about, cocktail servers who work on the casino floor earn generous tips, which means that their annual incomes can exceed $100,000 a year. So why don’t men apply? One female human resources manager of a Nevada casino said that she has a skimpy bikini-like costume for a male applicant just in case a man applies so that she can demonstrate that her casino does not discriminate. The manager suggested that besides shielding the casino from liability for discrimination, the costume serves the purpose of discouraging men from applying for the jobs. And, she reported, men do not apply.

As Ann points out, it's all about female sex appeal, made possible by the Ninth Circuit's Jespersen v. Harrah's.

A few notes/comments:

• Fwiw, I'm not convinced that the costume is an iron-clad shield to Title VII liability, but I'll let others comment on that.
• Ruben helpfully reminds us that the 2013 Labor and Employment Scholarship Colloquium is in Las Vegas.
• Just to avoid any confusion: that's neither Ruben nor Ann in the photo.

rb