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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Some job-screening tactics challenged as illegal
By SAM HANANEL, AP
5 hours ago
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Adrienne Hudson is photographed at the law office of Goldstein, Demchak, Bal...
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WASHINGTON — Companies using criminal records or bad credit reports to screen out job applicants might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws as the government steps up scrutiny of hiring policies that can hurt blacks and Hispanics.
A blanket refusal to hire workers based on criminal records or credit problems can be illegal if it has a disparate impact on racial minorities, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agency enforces the nation's employment discrimination laws.
"Our sense is that the problem is snowballing because of the technology allowing these checks to be done with a fair amount of ease," said Carol Miaskoff, assistant legal counsel at the EEOC.
With millions of adults having criminal records — anything from underage drinking to homicide — a growing number of job seekers are having a rough time finding work. And more companies are trying to screen out people with bankruptcies, court judgments or other credit problems just as those numbers have swollen during the recession.
Just ask Adrienne Hudson, a single mother who says she was fired from her new job as a bus driver at First Transit in Oakland, Calif., when the company found out she had been convicted seven years earlier for welfare fraud.
Hudson, 44, is fighting back with a lawsuit alleging the company's hiring practice discriminates against black and Latino job seekers, who have arrest and conviction rates far greater than whites. A spokesman for First Transit said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
"People make mistakes," said Hudson, who is black, "but when they correct their mistake, they should not be punished again outside of the court system."
Justice Department statistics show that 38 percent of the U.S. prison population is black, compared with about 12 percent of the general population. In 2008, African-Americans were about six times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. The incarceration rate for Latinos was 2.3 times higher than whites.
If criminal histories are taken into account, the EEOC says employers must also consider the nature of the job, the seriousness of the offense and how long ago it occurred. For example, it may make sense to disqualify a bank employee with a past conviction for embezzlement, but not necessarily for a DUI.
Most companies tend to be more nuanced when they look at credit reports, weeding out those applicants with bad credit only if they seek senior positions or jobs dealing with money. But if the screening process weeds out more black and Hispanic applicants than whites, an employer needs to show how the credit information is related to the job.
About 73 percent of major employers report that they always check on applicants' criminal records, while 19 percent do so for select job candidates, according to a 2010 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management.
The same survey found that almost half of major companies conduct credit checks for some job candidates, such as those who would be in a position of financial trust. Another 13 percent perform credit checks for all potential workers.
Last fall, the EEOC sent a strong message to employers when it filed a class-action lawsuit against Freeman Companies, a Dallas-based events planning firm, alleging the company discriminated against blacks, Hispanics and males by rejecting job seekers based on credit history and criminal records. Freeman has denied the charges.
The growth of online databases and a multimillion dollar background check industry have made it easy for employers to find out reams of information about potential hires. Companies see the checks as another way to weed out unsavory candidates, keep a safe work environment and prevent negligent hiring claims.
"Past indiscretions may be an indicator of future behavior, especially in the criminal context," said Pamela Devata, a Chicago employment lawyer who has represented companies trying to comply with EEOC's requirements.
Devata said employers nationwide have seen the EEOC become more active in investigating employer hiring practices. The scrutiny has caused many companies to reevaluate their screening process and move to a case-by-case standard.
Ariela Migdal, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Women's Rights Project in New York, said a person might have a blemish that has nothing to do with the job he or she is seeking. And records sometimes are inaccurate or not updated to reflect that someone arrested later had charges dropped or a conviction overturned or expunged, she said.
"Somebody with an old conviction that has been rehabilitated doesn't have any greater likelihood of committing a crime, so its irrational to use that against them," Migdal said.
Ron Heintzman, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, said he's seen dozens of job candidates disqualified "for reasons that were just ridiculous." His union, with 13,000 members in First Transit, is paying for the lawsuit that Hudson filed last month against the company which operates bus service in Oakland and several other major cities.
In Hudson's case, she was fired after just two days on the job as a bus driver because of a 7-year-old felony welfare fraud conviction. The conviction was later dismissed under California law, but her lawsuit, filed in federal court last month, claims the company has a policy to deny employment no matter how old the conviction, the applicant's prior work history or whether it is related to the job.
(This version CORRECTS name of American Civil Liberties Union.)
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
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Wed Aug 11, 2010 10:22 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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I would imagine that someone somewhere in the obama regime is as we speak planning on making a law that all employers have a certain percentage of convicted felons on their payrole. Sort of an affirmative action for ex-cons.  |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Thu Aug 12, 2010 7:44 am |
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lacyw
F L I N T O I D
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I hope they do not turn this into a race issue. While statistics show that minority males are incarcerated more often, this effects everyone else too. Maybe there is a belief that if they turn it into an EOE issue, they can get more done to remedy it.
Companies should work with their policies to streamline it so that employers can only get information pertinent to the job the candidate is seeking. For instance, make sure the janitor they want to hire is not a violent or sex offender, but do you really need to pull their credit or find out they got their license suspended for tickets?
I have never agreed with employers being able to get this information about credit scores if it is not pertinent to the job the candidate is seeking. I mean I can understand it if someone is applying to a financial advising job or something like that. There is a recession going on, people get divorced, there can be an illness in the family that wiped them out financially. A lot of people can have their credit affected by these circumstances. Does it mean that they should be denied employment? NO! Does it mean they owe the employer an explanation for their credit if it is not directly related to the job they are seeking? NO!
It does not help that every time an agency pulls your credit, it lowers your score. If those who are in the job market now had their credit pulled for every job they applied to, their score could be lowered substantially. Nice way to kick people when they're down.
On as for the matter of a criminal record. I honestly do not believe that employers should have the right to ask on an application or otherwise if you have ever been arrested. Convicted yes. arrested no. I am not an attorney, (Terry, maybe you can clarify this) but, according to our justice system as I understand it, someone who has been arrested is only being accused of something and therefore, they are innocent until proven guilty. If the case was dropped or they were arrested and released without being charged with something, they are innocent in the eyes of the law and therefore an employer should not be able to use that as grounds to deny them employment. |
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Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:10 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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I cannot even imagine hiring a person convicted of embezzlement for a position handling money!
A recent history of violence, drug sales, sex crimes etc should preclude someone from working around children. |
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Thu Aug 12, 2010 7:13 pm |
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