No Duty to Self-Accommodate for Employer Childcare Accommodations

An important case addressing the standard of family discrimination in Alberta involves an ER nurse who asked to remain in her current 12 hours per day for 4 days in a row followed by 4 days off rotation because the proposed new shift interfered with her childcare obligations. The Labour Board ruled that the nurse was entitled to accommodations, but only after she first tried to make alternative childcare arrangements.  Since she didn’t make such “self-accommodation” efforts, she had no case. After the Court of Queen’s Bench reversed, the case landed in the province’s top court. The Board got it wrong, the Court of Appeal found. Family status discrimination laws do not require employees to try and make other reasonable childcare arrangements before seeking scheduling accommodations from their employers, it reasoned [United Nurses of Alberta v Alberta Health Services, 2021 ABCA 194 (CanLII), May 25, 2021].