'It basically didn't acknowledge his request for accommodation and just said, 'This is the plan, take it or leave it''
“Accommodation is a two-way street – the employee has an obligation to make their disability known to an employer, but once that's done explicitly, then the onus switches over to the employer to make reasonable inquiries and engage in the accommodation process.”
So says Glen Stratton, an employment lawyer at Ascent Employment Law in Vancouver, after the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ordered an employer to pay a worker more than $200,000 for disability discrimination that forced the worker to resign over health concerns during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The worker was immunocompromised from the effects of medication he took to manage arthritis. According to his doctor, his arthritis was “a chronic, lifelong autoimmune condition that requires potentially lifelong therapy with an immune suppressing medication.”
On March 5, 2020, the worker interviewed for a position at DF Architecture (DFA), an architectural design firm in Richmond, BC. During the interview, they discussed COVID-19, which was spreading rapidly at the time, and management told the worker that they were exploring remote work options. The worker didn’t mention that he was immunocompromised.
One week later, DFA offered the worker a position as a project lead and architect. The worker accepted the offer the next day, with the expectation that he would start...
The offshore world has always attracted strong opinions. It’s complex, global, and full of moving parts that most people don’t fully understand. Mix that with online anonymity and you suddenly hav...