Disability complaints still dominate Manitoba Human Rights Commission's case load

Published on November 19, 2008 by Donna Seale

The Manitoba Human Rights Commission has released its annual report for 2007 and it illustrates that complaints based on physical or mental disability continue to dominate the various types of complaints received by the Commission each year. As noted by the report:

41% of the formal complaints filed with the Commission in 2007 were focused on the grounds of physical or mental disability. That's over double the next closest category of complaints –sex (including pregnancy) at 19%, followed by ancestry/ethnic origin at 17%.

Some other interesting stats for employers:

of the formal complaints filed in 2007, 150 of the 274 complaints alleged discrimination while 79 alleged a failure to reasonably accommodate;
and the kicker — 68% of all formal complaints filed in 2007 were against employers.

I'd recommend you have a look at the report, in particular pages 10 through 15. That's where you'll find summaries of select cases that were either resolved or went to adjudication in 2007. I find that when you read through actual 'real life' situations, that's where the learning is to be had. Read where other businesses or organizations went wrong and avoid doing what they did. Your employees and bottom line will be happy that you did!

Categories: Discrimination, Human rights basics, In the News, Items of interest, Reasonable Accommodation, Trends