Accommodation However, If …

Filed under: Avoca Accommodation

However, if there are “special circumstances” that “undermine the employees’ expectations of consistent, uniform treatment,” it may be a “reasonable Accommodation Avoca,” absent undue hardship, to reassign an employee despite the existence of a seniority system. For example, “special circumstances” may exist where an employer retains the right to alter the seniority system unilaterally, and has exercised that right fairly frequently, thereby lowering employee expectations in the seniority system.(94)In this circumstance, one more exception (i.e., providing the reassignment to an employee with a disability) may not make a difference.(95)Alternatively, a seniority system may contain exceptions, such that one more exception is unlikely to matter.(96) Another possibility is that a seniority system might contain procedures for making exceptions, thus suggesting to employees that seniority does not automatically guarantee access to a specific job.