February 8, 2007, 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. EST

Playback: Tuesday, February 13, 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. EST

Matthew Certosimo

Employer Counsel
Borden Ladner Gervais

Anne Gregory

Union Counsel
Canadian Union of Public Employees

Mary Mackinnon

Union Counsel
Raven, Cameron, Ballantyne & Yazbeck

Marli Rusen

Employer Counsel
Heenan Blaikie

Each passing year brings dramatic changes in the practical contours of the duty to accommodate disabled employees, as arbitrators, courts and adjudicators grapple with this rapidly evolving area of human rights law. By popular demand, Lancaster House brings together a panel of experts to examine the outer limits of the law of accommodation in this special advanced session. Building on listeners’ existing basic understanding, our panel will focus on the most complicated questions generated by the duty to accommodate, including:

• Permanent accommodations: Does the duty to accommodate require employers to tolerate absenteeism, sub-par productivity? Adjust hours of work? Create positions? Reassign light duties?

• Balancing workplace safety with the duty to accommodate: When can the employer hold a disabled worker out of service or refuse a proposed accommodation on safety grounds?

• Seniority and the disabled worker: Can collective agreement provisions be "waived" in the search for accommodation? When, if ever, should the collective agreement's promotion, bumping, and posting provisions be bypassed? When do seniority and/or benefit accrual rules discriminate against disabled workers? How should the union balance its duty of fair representation to the bargaining unit as a whole with its obligation to facilitate the accommodation of disabled workers? 

• Disciplining disabled workers for culpable conduct: Is disability merely a mitigating factor to be taken into account in assessing penalty, or does it negate the worker's culpability for illness-related misconduct? When does the duty to accommodate arise in the disciplinary process? Who bears the onus of proving that misconduct is disability-related? Does a breach of the duty to accommodate render discipline void ab initio? What remedies will arbitrators order in these circumstances?

• The employee's duty in the accommodation process: Must employees participate in treatment? Can employers hold employees out of service if they don't get help? Can employers discipline/terminate employees for not facilitating accommodation? Can employee intransigence vitiate the employer's duty to accommodate?

$195, plus GST (Registrations must be paid in advance of the audio conference). Registration costs are per listening site/telephone, so you can have any number of people listening at your location for one low price. Click here for registration information.