Queries into employee’s self-accommodation efforts irrelevant to prima facie discrimination: arbitrator
Conversations related to accommodating employees under human rights legislation can be difficult or awkward. These conversations often involve the intermingling of work requirements and intensely personal issues, like medical conditions or faith.
The proliferation of requests for family status accommodations has added discussion of childcare and, in some cases, eldercare to the mix.
While the law governing disability-related accommodations clearly defines what information employers may request, the legal boundaries in family status cases are less settled. Two recent grievance arbitration decisions help clarify what employers can — and can’t — ask in this context.
In the Alberta arbitration case of IBEW, Local 1007 v. Epcor Utilities, 2024 CanLII 119276, two employees, Boyko and Iacovone, asked to be accommodated when their employer informed them that their work location was going to be changed from the employer’s Edmiston, Alta., location to its Kennedale, Alta., location.
Boyko and Iacovone were not in a relationship or part of the same family, but both their requests for accommodation were triggered by the same employer decision, so their grievances were arbitrated together.
Both Boyko and Iacovone had young children. Boyko’s children were four, six, and eight at the relevant time. Iacovone’s were four, eight, and ten. At the...
By Victor Ahiuma-Young The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has introduced stricter advertising rules for Pension Fund Administrators, PFAs, warning operators against false claims, misleading ...