Duty to accommodate means this: if a workplace rule or a job collides with a protected ground under the Ontario Human Rights Code — most often disability, but also family status, creed, sex, and others — the employer has to adjust the work to the point of undue hardship.
It is not a favour. It does not have to be written into your collective agreement to exist. I have a longer piece on why accommodation is not a favour. This one is the short version of what it is.
What the employer has to do
Ask. Get relevant information — usually restrictions, not a fishing trip for a diagnosis. Look at hours, duties, equipment, and, if needed, a vacant comparable job. Talk to the worker. In a unionized workplace, talk to the union. Write down what was considered and why something was refused.
A meeting is not an accommodation. A form letter is not an accommodation. A real modification that matches the medical restrictions is.
What the worker has to do
Participate. Provide information. Keep it current. Consider a reasonable proposal even if it is not your first choice. Holding out for the perfect option while refusing a workable one is how these grievances collapse.
Why it is messy in a union shop
Seniority, posting, and “we don’t create jobs” all walk into the room. Seniority is not nothing. It is also not a veto. The first search is still the worker’s own job, modified. Bumping someone else is a last resort. The union can be on the hook too if it blocks a reasonable accommodation.
- Undue hardship is about cost, outside funding, and health and safety — not inconvenience, and not “other employees will complain.”
- A WSIB return-to-work plan does not use up the Code duty. They run on different tracks.
- “It’s not in the collective agreement” is not a defence.
If the employer is refusing to talk, or demanding a diagnosis when restrictions would do, get your steward. This often becomes a grievance. The paperwork is the case.
