Glossary - Employment and Work

In Employment and Work, Housing Law, Human Rights, Tribunals and Courts

Ontario’s Human Rights Code says that employers and landlords must do what they can to remove barriers that cause people to be treated differently because of personal differences that are listed in the Human Rights Code. The legal word for this is accommodation. Examples of personal differences include a person’s ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability. 

But an employer or landlord might not have to do something if they can prove that doing it will cause them undue hardship. For example, it would be undue hardship:

• if the only solution available would cost the employer or landlord too much
• if the only solution would cause a serious risk to the health or safety to other workers or tenants 

In Employment and Work, Human Rights, Tribunals and Courts

A union is an organized group of workers that bargains with an employer to set conditions of employment, such as wages, hours of work, and overtime pay. Sometimes unions are called labour unions or trade unions.