Human Rights
Duty to accommodate a PSAC guide for local representatives
The Public Service Alliance of Canada is committed to ensuring that workplaces are equitable and fair. This means that we view human rights in the workplace as an essential element in our mandate to represent our members.
The duty to accommodate is an essential principle in our approach to human rights. Due to a Supreme Court of Canada decision (British Columbia (PSERC) v. British Columbia Government and Services Employees’ Union, also known as “Meiorin”) in September 1999, this concept has been radically changed in a very positive way.
Previously, the duty to accommodate meant the right of a group or individual to have a specific situation modified in a manner that did not change the basic elements of the situation, but did allow the group or individual to fully operate within that situation. In the workplace, reasonable accommodation involved specific legal rights and responsibilities and was a reactive response to individual or group discrimination. Employers, and Unions, were legally required to take reasonable actions to eliminate the effects of employment practices or rules that discriminated against individuals or groups on the basis of a prohibited ground, such as race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation and so on.
The Meiorin decision is the point of reference or benchmark for any duty to accommodate analysis. The Meiorin decision broadened that definition to place a positive obligation on employers to design workplace standards and requirements so that they do not discriminate (i.e., the employer must take proactive action to ensure these standards and requirements are not discriminatory). In fact, the decision states:
Employers designing workplace standards owe an obligation to be aware of both the differences between individuals, and differences that characterize groups of individuals. They must build conceptions of equality into workplace standards. By enacting human rights statutes and providing that they are applicable to the workplace, the legislatures have determined that the standards governing the performance of work should be designed to reflect all members of society, in so far as this is reasonably possible. The standard itself is required to provide for individual accommodation, if reasonably possible. (para 68 emphasis added)
The duty to accommodate is usually thought of in relation to disability, but it relates to all grounds of discrimination found under human rights legislation, including culture, religion, family status and so on.
The Guide is set up as a Question and Answer document. Laws change at a rapid pace and this document will be updated from time to time. If you have questions that are not answered in this document, contact your Local or Component for further information. Questions you feel should be addressed in the Guide should be forwarded to the PSAC Human Rights Office.
- Duty to accommodate a PSAC guide for local representatives [PDF, 45 pages, 467K] or in Microsoft Word
(Replaces Duty to Accommodate: A PSAC Guide for Local Representatives, March 2000)
Date Modified : 2010/05/25
