A railway company’s failure to consider suggested jobs that met a pregnant worker’s medical restrictions didn’t fulfil the company’s duty to accommodate, an arbitrator has ruled.
“The decision provides in very clear terms that the duty to accommodate doesn’t end with the worker’s own position,” says Rich Appiah, principal of Appiah Law in Toronto. “Employers would be well advised to look beyond a disabled employee’s own position to see if accommodation can be found elsewhere, either through other positions within the organization that would suit the employee’s restrictions or other positions that could be modified.”
The worker was a conductor for Canadian National Railway (CNR) at a terminal in Prince George, BC.
