Thursday, October 1, 2009
12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. EDT
Playback: Monday, October 5, 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. EDT

Matt Certosimo

Employer Counsel
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Anne Gregory

Union Counsel
Canadian Union of Public Employees

Kim Bernhardt

Union Counsel
Grant & Bernhardt

Kim Thorne

Employer Counsel
Roper Greyell

ISSUES:

The workplace parties are increasingly faced with complex cases involving the duty to accommodate.  In this audio conference, a panel of leading counsel will delve into the hard questions that confront arbitrators, adjudicators, and the courts, including:

• Scope of duty to accommodate: Should disabled workers be held to different performance standards? Must employers develop physical demand analyses to assess the ability of disabled employees to perform particular jobs? To meet the duty to accommodate, is the employer obliged to modify the job? The workplace? The jobs of other employees?
• Absenteeism and the duty to accommodate: Does the duty to accommodate require employers to tolerate absenteeism? Must employers lower attendance standards for disabled workers? Adjust hours of work? What weight is given to attendance management programs by arbitrators and human rights tribunals in deciding whether the duty to accommodate has been met?
• Addiction and the duty to accommodate: When will drug use be considered an addiction requiring accommodation under human rights legislation?
• Undue hardship: How do courts, arbitrators and human rights tribunals assess undue hardship? When can the cost of accommodation be considered an undue hardship? What consideration should be given to an employee's preferences when assessing the level of hardship that an employer must endure? Is there a requirement to accommodate difficulty in commuting?
• Employee’s duty to cooperate: What effect does an employee’s failure to cooperate have on the duty to accommodate? Do disabled employees have a legal obligation to accept reasonable accommodation proposals? Can employees be disciplined for not facilitating accommodation?
• Impact on the collective agreement: Can collective agreement provisions related to promotion, bumping, and posting provisions be waived or bypassed in the search for accommodation? When does enforcement of seniority rights discriminate against disabled workers? How should the union balance its duty of fair representation to the whole bargaining unit with its obligation to facilitate accommodation of disabled workers?
• Layoffs and business closures: When can disabled employees be laid off? Do bumping rights of disabled employees differ from those of their non-disabled counterparts? Is denying severance pay to disabled employees discriminatory?
• Discharge of disabled employees: When can permanently disabled employees be terminated? When does dismissal for innocent absenteeism amount to discrimination? In what circumstances can employers discharge disabled workers for illness-related misconduct? Is disability merely a mitigating factor to be taken into account in assessing penalty, or does it negate the worker’s culpability?

$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.