The Alberta Court of Queen's bench recently reviewed the arbitrator's
decision in SMS Equipment, a case on which we have
written before (see our update on the decision here), and one of
the first in the current wave of cases concerning the entitlement
of employees to accommodation for child care obligations under
human rights legislation.
The decision involved a single mother working in the Alberta
oilpatch who had recently started a job with a rotating night and
day schedule. That schedule, it was alleged, made it prohibitively
expensive and difficult for her to seek out childcare for her two
young children.
The arbitrator found that the scheduling discriminated against
the employee because of her family status, in that it adversely
affected the employee due to her status as a mother to two young
children.
