In a rare judgment, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has awarded $20,000 to a migrant worker who complained he was let go after a workplace accident required him to be put on lighter duties.

Ben Saad, a welder from Tunisia, came to Canada to work for Windsor Management in June 2014. He was injured on the job five months later when a closing rolling steel door struck him on the head.

The complainant suffered head injuries, subsequently developed back pain and was found to have a compressed fracture of the lumbar spine, according to tribunal adjudicator Dawn Kershaw in her ruling this month.

On doctors’ advice, the judgment said, Saad was deemed unfit for work for one week and ordered to return to modified work afterward.

The complainant alleged that he was given light work in the assembly department upon his return, but his supervisor “pressured” him to go back to normal duties right up until the company fired him on Feb. 6, 2015, along with a relative who came to work for the employer at the same time.

Saad subsequently filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal on the grounds of disability and ethnic origin.

Although the tribunal dismissed ethnic origin as a factor in Saad’s termination, it concluded that his employer discriminated against him on the basis of disability.

“I find the respondents let the applicant go because of his attendance, which was affected adversely by his disability. The discriminatory act was not in terminating the applicant as a Tunisian worker, but in making the decision to terminate the applicant of the view that he had very poor attendance,” wrote Kershaw.

“I find he would not have had if he had not been injured. I accept the applicant’s uncontroverted testimony in that respect.”

The respondents — Windsor Management, EWS Inc., Essex Weld Solutions Ltd. and a numbered company — did not attend the tribunal hearing last September.

In a statement, Essex Weld Solutions said it regretted the findings made in its absence and blamed “lax internal controls” for not responding to the complaint and participating in the hearing.

“The company recognizes the unfairness to Mr. Saad, his Toronto counsel Roger Love and adjudicator D.J. Kershaw in impugning the tribunal findings having not participated in the proceedings,” it said.

“The company has no intention of doing so. The company extends its unreserved apologies to Mr. Saad and looks forward to compensating him in accordance with the tribunal’s decision.”

In earlier submissions to the tribunal, Windsor Management and the related companies argued that they terminated Saad because of a slowdown in work and because, at the time, changes to the federal temporary foreign worker program compelled them to reduce the ratio of foreign workers on staff.

They claimed Saad and his relative happened to be at the bottom of the seniority list and no other Tunisian workers were hired at Windsor Management after the complainant’s termination.

Notes submitted by the employer from human resources meetings in January 2015 also indicated they planned to put on hold initiatives to bring in more foreign workers until the slowdown ended.

In response, Saad disclosed a series of emails between the employer and an immigration counsellor at the Canadian Embassy in early 2015 that suggested they were still looking for more welders from Tunisia.

The complainant also said he was brought to Canada under a different program targeting francophone migrant workers and was not affected by the government’s regulatory changes.

A memo from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board submitted by the complainant about a telephone conversation on Feb. 26, 2015, recorded Windsor Management as “saying that it was put in a bad position because it did not have enough employees to fill all its contracts, ” according to the tribunal judgment.

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Saad testified he was unable to get work after his termination and accused Windsor Management of giving poor job references to potential employers. Saad declined to comment but his lawyer, Roger Love, said his client was pleased with the decision.

The tribunal ordered the respondents to pay Saad $20,000 for damages in 30 days and provide him with a letter of employment within two months.

The employers must also retain the services of a consultant to review and revise its internal human rights policy and ensure both their management and human resources employees take part in the Ontario Human rights Commission’s online training.