The Alberta Human Rights Act protects against discrimination at work, including these areas:
Employees play an important role in creating an inclusive workplace by understanding their rights and responsibilities under the Act.
Employees have the right to:
Employees are responsible for:
Employers have a right to manage their businesses in the way they see fit so long as they comply with human rights law. This includes the right to protect the health and safety of others and to have bona fide occupational requirements (BFOR) for their employees.
Employers are responsible for:
Employers are also responsible for the actions of their employees. If an employee experiences discrimination at work, they may make a complaint to the Commission against the employer even if the negative treatment was from a fellow employee.
Trade unions and associations have a right to manage their organizations in the way they see fit so long as they comply with human rights laws.
Trade unions and associations are also responsible for:
Read our Trade unions and associations page to learn more.
Employers, service providers, housing providers, condominium corporations, and landlords have a duty to take steps to accommodate individual needs to the point of undue hardship. Some hardship may be necessary in accommodating a person. Where an employer, service provider, housing provider, condominium corporation, or landlord says that accommodating a person causes an undue hardship, it must provide proof. In many cases, accommodation measures are simple and affordable and do not create undue hardship.
Accommodation may cause some inconvenience, disruption, and expense to an employer, service provider, or landlord, but the law requires accommodation to the point of undue hardship.
Undue hardship occurs if accommodation would create significantly onerous conditions for an employer, service provider, or landlord. For example, this may include intolerable financial costs or serious disruption to business. Other factors that may determine if undue hardship would occur include:
Undue hardship is unique to every situation. Certain accommodation may create undue hardship for one employer, service provider, or landlord but not for another. For example, a business with three employees may not be able to accommodate a request for revised work hours as easily as a business that has 25 employees.
For more information on undue hardship, refer to the Duty to Accommodate human rights guide.
Employers, service providers, landlords, and others have a duty to accommodate. This means making changes to rules, standards, policies, workplace culture, and physical environments to eliminate or reduce the negative impact that someone faces because of a protected ground. The goal of accommodation is to provide an equal opportunity for an individual or group to participate in any of the protected areas under the Act.
Employers, service providers, or landlords who receive a request for accommodation must take reasonable steps to accommodate the person’s needs to the point of undue hardship.
Read the Duty to accommodate page to learn more.
Creating a respectful work culture where racism and discrimination are not tolerated and where people feel safe to report issues improves the entire organization. Organizations benefit from providing human rights education and training in the workplace.
They also benefit from having policies to prevent and respond to racism and discrimination in the workplace. For example, a harassment prevention policy or a respectful workplace policy. Beyond just having policies, the employer must also tell employees about the policies and enforce them. This includes taking prompt and proper action on complaints. Organizations also benefit from having a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy.
If you are an employee, talk to your employer about racism and discrimination prevention policies and providing human rights education in your workplace.
For more information, refer to the Preventing discrimination page and the Responding to discrimination page.
Equal pay addresses a common practice of female employees receiving less pay than their male colleagues. The Act says an employer must provide equal pay to employees of different genders who perform the same or very similar work. This does not stop an employer from paying employees differently based on experience, education, or merit, even if they perform the same or very similar work. However, an employer must ensure it hires, promotes, pays, and dismisses employees based on objective guidelines applied equally to all genders.
The Act also says an employer cannot reduce an employee’s rate of pay to comply with this rule. This means the employer cannot reduce the pay of the higher earning employee to match the pay of the lower earning employee.
For example, an employer pays a female employee $10,000 less per year than her male colleague for the same work simply because of their different genders. The female employee can make a complaint to the Commission against her employer for the difference in pay.
If an employee files a complaint, they can claim the difference in pay they received versus what they should have received. The employee must make a human rights complaint within one year of discovering the unequal pay. The employee can only claim the difference in wages going back one year from whichever date comes first: the date the employer terminated their employment or the date they made a human rights complaint.
The Act recognizes that sometimes discrimination is reasonable and justifiable in the circumstances. This allows a person or organization responding to a human rights complaint to justify a discriminatory practice, requirement, standard, or policy as being reasonable and justifiable.
A discriminatory practice at work that is reasonable and justifiable is called a bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR). A service provider may have discriminatory standards or policies that are reasonable and justifiable.
Employers, service providers, landlords, and others must meet legal requirements to prove a practice, requirement, standard, or policy is reasonable and justifiable. They must show it:
For example, a car insurance company provides different premium rates to people based on a risk assessment of certain age groups. While the company’s rate-setting methods are prima facie (at first glance) discriminatory based on age, the practice of charging more for certain groups is reasonable and justifiable. The insurance company’s methods may be a sound and accepted practice in the industry, and there may be no practical alternatives that are fair to other insured drivers.
Another example is a seniors’ residence only hiring male nursing attendants for male residents who request an attendant of the same gender. A female job applicant applies for a nursing attendant position in the seniors’ residence but is not hired. The employer may have a bona fide occupational requirement, as it is reasonable for residents to have their requests met to preserve their sense of personal dignity and privacy. While the requirement is at first glance discriminatory, it is reasonable and justifiable in the circumstance.
If you are the respondent to a complaint and believe the discrimination described in the complaint is reasonable and justifiable, you should provide detailed information about this in the Response Form.
For more on reasonable and justifiable practices, requirements, standards, or policies, refer to the Defences to Human Rights Complaints human rights guide.
Human rights laws are only one piece of employment law. There are many laws that govern the relationships between employees, employers, and trade unions and associations.
For example, employment standards laws set out minimum requirements that employers must follow when it comes to employee pay, working hours, terminations, leaves of absence, overtime, and more. Occupational health and safety laws set out rules for ensuring a healthy and safe workplace. Workers’ compensation laws create a no-fault insurance plan to compensate injured workers. Employment insurance laws set out compensation for eligible unemployed workers. Labour laws govern trade unions and employers’ organizations.
Read our Other helpful agencies page to learn more about employment agencies that can help with issues besides human rights.
The Act does not define “employee” or “employer.” The law usually considers an employee to be someone who earns their livelihood from an employment relationship. A person is usually an employer if they somewhat control the worker’s ability to earn a livelihood.
When it comes to human rights issues, courts in Canada have given human rights legislation a broad and liberal interpretation. This means human rights law may consider that an employment relationship exists where other laws do not see the relationship in the same way. Before deciding whether an employment relationship exists, the Commission considers many things, such as:
Independent contractors, subcontractors, and taxi drivers have all been employees under human rights law. In some situations, volunteers could also be employees under human rights law.
If you are not sure if you are an employee or employer, contact the Commission.
Employers, service providers, landlords, and others have a duty to accommodate. This means making changes to rules, standards, policies, workplace culture, and physical environments to eliminate or reduce the negative impact that someone faces because of a protected ground. The goal of accommodation is to provide an equal opportunity for an individual or group to participate in any of the protected areas under the Act.
Employers, service providers, or landlords who receive a request for accommodation must take reasonable steps to accommodate the person’s needs to the point of undue hardship.
Read the Duty to accommodate page to learn more.
Sometimes. Employers may be liable for behaviour or actions that happen away from the workplace or outside work hours if they impact the workplace. For example, an employer may be liable for staff behaviour during business trips, company parties, or other company-related events. We call this the “extended workplace.”
Employers must respond quickly and diligently to human rights issues at work. Read our Responding to discrimination page to learn more.
No. Employees can make a complaint to the Commission whether or not they report the incident of discrimination to their employer. However, an employee who does not report the incident to their employer may have a harder time proving that the employer knew about the discrimination and was therefore responsible.
If the employee belongs to a trade union, the employee may talk to their union representative first.
Employers should make sure their employees know about their policies and the processes for reporting discrimination. Employers should also enforce the policy if discrimination does occur. To learn more, watch Effective Harassment Prevention Policy of the Workplace and read Sample harassment prevention policy and Developing and implementing an effective harassment and sexual harassment policy.
Employers are responsible for creating a discrimination-free workplace. Beyond a legal obligation, it also makes good business sense to do so. It is in an employer’s best interest to foster a work environment that discourages discrimination and encourages employees to treat each other with respect.
The benefits of a discrimination-free workplace include:
Ignoring acts of discrimination can lead to low employee morale, high stress, damaged professional reputations, absenteeism, and dissatisfied employees and clients.
Policies can include many terms and standards related to the workplace. However, employers must make sure policies do not discriminate against employees based on protected grounds. Employers should adopt policies honestly and in good faith, and that relate to the job duties.
Employers can learn more by attending one of the Commission’s public workshops on human rights. Read the Training and development page to learn more or visit the upcoming Events page to register for a workshop. Employers can also work with a lawyer or human resources professional to create policies that comply with human rights laws.
To learn more, watch Effective Harassment Prevention Policy of the Workplace webinar and read the Sample harassment prevention policy and Developing and implementing an effective harassment and sexual harassment policy information sheets.
Pension, retirement, and insurance plans that differentiate or deny benefits because of a protected ground may be discriminatory. For example, a pension plan that denies benefits to an employee’s same-gender partner is discriminatory.
However, the protected grounds of age and marital status do not apply to pension, retirement, or insurance plans made in good faith. For example, an employer-provided pension plan might have an age limit for contributing to the plan. Similarly, an employee may only be able to access a group medical insurance plan up to a certain age. An employer can also offer different insurance plans to employees who are single versus those who are married.
Discrimination in this area can be complex. Contact the Commission if you have questions.
An employer can have reasonable rules for employees about appearance, grooming, and dress standards they believe are needed to safely or effectively conduct their business. This might include requiring employees to wear uniforms or protective gear. However, if a dress code or standard conflicts with an employee’s protected ground, the employer has a duty to accommodate the employee to the point of undue hardship. As well, an employer cannot use a dress code to exclude certain individuals from employment or to treat an employee negatively. Dress codes should not differentiate between genders.
For example, a hospital may require nurses to wear different coloured uniforms to easily identify their professional designation or assignment (RN, LPN, surgical, etc.). This is not discrimination under the Act if the requirement does not negatively affect an employee based on a protected ground.
However, if an employer requires female servers to only wear short skirts and high heels, this discriminates against female-identifying employees based on gender. If an employer requires employees to be clean-shaven, this might discriminate against employees who grow beards for religious reasons. The employee and employer should work together to accommodate the employee.
An employer can give staff the option to self-identify certain personal characteristics, such as race or gender. However, this must be voluntary. The employer cannot require employees to self-identify.
An employer should also explain why it is asking staff to self-identify. For example, some employers do so as part of their equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) program to measure the diversity of their workforce.
A collective agreement may set out how to request accommodation or the process for resolving disputes. The trade union can help the employer and employee communicate with each other and find a resolution. An employee can report discrimination to the Commission without reporting to their trade union, though the Commission recommends an employee talks to their trade union first.
Read the Trade unions and associations page to learn more.
Microaggressions are indirect, subtle, or unintentional discrimination by words or actions that occur in everyday life. They can occur in the workplace or when a person is accessing services. They are often directed at women or members of racial or ethnic minorities. Microaggressions can be discriminatory.
Individuals, businesses, and organizations have rights and responsibilities in preventing discrimination by creating respectful, inclusive workplaces and responding to discrimination. How you respond depends on whether you experienced or witnessed discrimination, or are responding to a complaint.
For more information, refer to the following resources:
Individuals, organizations, and communities have the ability and responsibility to create environments where all people are included, respected, and treated equitably. There are many ways for organizations to be diverse, respectful, and inclusive.
Some steps you can take include:
Refer to the following information on this website to learn more:
Our vision is a vibrant and inclusive Alberta where the rich diversity of people is celebrated and respected, and where everyone has the opportunity to fully participate in society, free from discrimination.
