Casual Legal: Addressing impairment in the workplace
DISCLAIMER: This article is meant to provide information only and is not intended to provide legal advice. You should seek the advice of legal counsel to address your specific set of circumstances. Although every effort has been made to provide current and accurate information, changes to the law may cause the information in this article to be outdated.
By Lauren Chalaturnyk
Reynolds Mirth Richards Farmer LLP
Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Service Provider
Municipalities, like all employers, may experience challenges in the workplace relating to drugs and alcohol and will often question the scope of what they can (or can’t) do to address these challenges.
The starting place for any workplace issue that requires regulation is policy. Implementing a drug and alcohol policy or procedure will be the best practice where a municipality is facing concerns about drugs and alcohol in the workplace or impairment at work. Typical drug and alcohol policies will address issues such as pre-employment conditions and testing, expectations relative to impairment on the job site, additional expectations where an employee is in a safety-sensitive position, grounds for testing, testing requirements and procedures, and consequences for non-compliance. A drug and alcohol policy may also deal with the employer’s rules around consumption of alcohol at workplace-sanctioned or workplace social events.
Substance use disorder or addictions constitute a mental disability under human rights legislation, which means that an employer’s duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship will often be engaged. In the context of drugs or alcohol, accommodation can sometimes require placing an employee on a leave of absence while they seek treatment or adjusting their work responsibilities or duties. As with any accommodation, it must be tailored to the specific individual and be responsive to medical information which the employee must provide to access the accommodation.
Drug and alcohol policies engage considerations under human rights legislation, so they need to be drafted and applied in a manner that is consistent with human rights obligations. This can be done by carving out exceptions where an individual contravenes the policy but has a medical condition which contributed to or caused the contravention. In some cases, the contravention will be serious enough to allow for more serious forms of progressive discipline, such as termination for cause; however, employers should always be cautious before proceeding with a termination, especially where there could be an underlying human rights issue.
Where it is an issue of impairment on the job, it will always be prudent for an employer to seek legal advice before taking any disciplinary steps. Employers can, of course, respond to immediate safety concerns, but prior to any discipline being imposed, legal advice should be sought to ensure risks are mitigated and all safety, employment, and human rights obligations are met.
To access Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Helpline, Alberta Municipalities members can call toll-free to 1-800-661-7673 or email casuallegal [at] abmunis.ca (casuallegal[at]abmunis[dot]ca) and reach the municipal legal experts at Reynolds Mirth Richards and Farmer LLP. For more information on the Casual Legal Service, please contact riskcontrol [at] abmunis.ca (riskcontrol[at]abmunis[dot]ca), or call 310-MUNI (6864) to speak to Alberta Municipalities Risk Management staff. Any Regular or Associate member of Alberta Municipalities can access the Casual Legal Service.
