Employment Background Checks

Short-Term Extension Of E-Verify Sets Up Big 2009 Battle

2008-10-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

A bruising partisan battle over an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws is expected to surface in the early days of the next Congress and new presidential administration, a clash that already has lawmakers, lobbyists and immigration advocates gearing up to fight. The stage was set in a little-noticed provision in the continuing resolution that Congress recently passed to keep the federal government functioning into March.

The provision gives a short-term extension to the Homeland Security Department's E-Verify program, which offers employers an online tool to verify the legal status of workers. The extension ends March 6 -- a mere 45 days after either Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois or Republican candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona takes office.

"Does a President McCain or Obama want to step in next March in the middle of a cat fight? Hell no," one congressional aide said. Some lawmakers, mostly Republicans, sought a long-term extension of E-Verify. But others, mainly Democrats, wanted to add changes to immigration laws to any E-Verify legislation, such as a proposal to recapture unused visas. For now, the looming March deadline has all sides preparing to fight again.

"Reauthorization of E-Verify will probably be the springboard for further debates. It's probably unavoidable," said one source who opposes expanding immigrant visas. "We expect immigration to come back to the fore next spring."

In July, the House approved a bill reauthorizing E-Verify for five years. But Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., blocked the bill in the Senate in an effort to add a provision making hundreds of thousands of unused family visas dating back to 1992 available for use. Critics suspect Menendez was doing the bidding of Democratic leaders, who expect to win more congressional seats and possibly the White House in the upcoming elections.

"It seems that there was a deliberate effort to punt these issues to the next administration with the hope for a better negotiating environment," one source said. An aide to Menendez said the senator was fighting for something he believed in. "The approach to immigration reform can't be unbalanced," the aide said. "It can't be things that are only targeted to the business communities. It needs to be fair to the families."

In the end, Democrats argued that a short extension of E-Verify was all that could be done. But critics noted that Congress also approved a stand-alone bill at the end of September to extend to March 6 a visa program for religious workers who are not ministers.

If Congress was able to pass that bill, they said, it should have been able to tackle other immigration measures. Some congressional aides also fear that state legislatures will quickly approve mandatory employment verification laws after they open their sessions in January.

"The world outside of here is going to be spinning a thousand miles an hour," one aide said. "We will have a massive employment verification requirement that state by state by state will be different." Such actions by the states could complicate what happens in Congress. "I think everybody will admit that there's going to be more Democrats around here next Congress."

Source: National Association of Professional Background Screeners

Human Resource Managers Struggle as Political Discussions Heat Up the Workplace

2008-10-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Free Tip Sheet on Handling Election Year Politics in the Workplace Made Available

Mount Pleasant, SC — October 3, 2008 – As the 2008 Presidential Election picks up steam, human resource managers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep the peace and help employees stay focused. To answer this need, WorkExcel.com has prepared a free fact sheet, Election Year Politics: Protocols for Office Talk, http://www.workexcel.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=64 that offers proven methods of cooling down hot button political issues in the office. The site also offers human resource products and tools that help increase productivity and reduce work related stress and behavioral problems of employees.

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Age Discrimination Claims, Pre-employment Medical Tests, Commission Chargebacks, and More

2008-09-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

This new year has brought a variety of new employment law cases from both federal and state courts. Most offer clarification on existing law, while a couple expand existing obligations or liability.

Federal Court Decisions

Older Employees Can Bring (Limited) Disparate Impact Age Discrimination Claims Under Federal Law

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently settled the question of whether older employees can bring disparate impact 1 suits where neutral policies disparately impact older workers. In Smith v. City of Jackson, Mississippi, 125 S. Ct. 1536 (March 30, 2005), the Court held in a 5-3 decision (Justice Rehnquist did not participate) that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act ("ADEA") permitted such claims, although it found in that case the plaintiffs failed to state a viable claim for disparate impact.

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Workers need to head off flashpoints where stressed workers can explode

2008-09-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

What do some workers and a lit firecracker have in common?

Both are ready to explode.

Once a fuse is lit, it’s hard to stop the consequence. And that’s why Michael Tabman preaches taking care of the matches.

In today’s economy, with downsizing companies, stagnant pay, shrinking 401(k)s, higher health-care costs and clashing politics, many people’s emotions are volatile.

It doesn’t take much to light the match.

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Colorado sex-crime database perplexes

2008-09-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

When President Bush signed the Adam Walsh Act into law, it required states to contribute to a national database of sex offenders with more current and stringent registration requirements.

But states and American Indian tribes are having a tough time implementing some of the requirements of the 2006 law — such as making the names and addresses of juvenile sex offenders available on the Internet.

In Colorado, officials have met for more than a year to decide whether to comply with the Adam Walsh Act by July or lose $240,000 in federal funding.

And it may be worth losing the money since it could cost more to fulfill the law's requirements.

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Better background checks improve entire community

2008-09-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

CSU appears to be taking a measured - and appropriate - approach to developing broader policies to conduct background checks on all prospective employees.

Colorado State University already had began pursuing changes in how it conducts background checks when an employee in the human resources office, Samuel Kase White, was arrested last fall. White is facing charges of sexually assaulting six women. Police found evidence he had used CSU's computers to look up addresses of female employees, but there is not evidence that he visited homes of any of those employees.

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CV Dishonesty: The Lying Game

2008-09-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

A recent analysis by The Risk Advisory Group of 3,000 screens of potential financial services employees, demonstrated that 25% of all CVs contained material irregularities.

These included academic qualifications, previous employment history (duration, responsibilities and salaries were all common grounds for embellishment), County Court judgments, directorships and in the worst case a criminal conviction (fertile ground for omission).

The results were surprising for three reasons. Firstly, in every case the candidate filled in a 15-page disclosure document that asked detailed questions. Secondly, unlike previous years, each CV contained not one but on average three material discrepancies.

Thirdly, the candidates had already been interviewed by professionals and in many cases more than once before the job offer had been extended ‘subject to satisfactory CV verification’. Their untruths had not, therefore, been discovered by human resource professionals and their business counterparts during the interview process.

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Senate committee approves long-term care background checks bill

2008-09-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Senate Finance Committee this week passed the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act (S. 1577), which would establish a nationwide system of background checks for potential long-term care employees, by a unanimous vote.

If passed by the Senate, the bill would allow nursing homes to weed out potentially abusive caregivers from the hiring pool. Bill sponsors Sens. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) in a statement called the bill an important step toward protecting seniors from mistreatment by those who care for them. Earlier this year, the Senate Special Committee on Aging, which Kohl chairs, announced that a three-year, seven-state background check pilot program had prevented thousands of potentially abusive candidates from gaining employment in the long-term care field (McKnight's, 8/11). Congress returned to session this week.

Congress, State Attorneys General across the country and many eldercare lobbying groups approve of the legislation. While no full vote is currently scheduled for the bill, proponents are hopeful it will pass before the end of the 110th Congress' legislative calendar.

ASIS Foundation CRISP Report Explores Gun Violence in the Workplace

2008-09-17T09:42:00.001-07:00

Workplace violence affects more than two million workers in the United States every year and accounts for about 20 percent of all violent crime. That's according to "Preventing Gun Violence in the Workplace," a Connecting Research in Security to Practice (CRISP) Report commissioned by the ASIS Foundation.

The report also finds that even though most workplace violence is not fatal, an average of 500 homicides occur in U.S. workplaces each year, at a cost of $800,000 for each death.

"This report addresses the problem of gun violence in the workplace and strategies to prevent it," says Martin Gill, chair of the ASIS Foundation Research Council. Its geographic focus is the United States because of the unique protections the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives to the possession and carrying of firearms.

"More than three-quarters of workplace homicides are committed with guns," author Dana Loomis writes. "About two-thirds of workplace homicides are related to robbery; the remainder result from conflicts between workers and clients, coworkers, acquaintances or family members."

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Mixed reactions to overturned sex offender law

2008-09-17T09:39:00.000-07:00

A law that would have changed the way sex offenders are classified has been tossed out by a federal judge. But some may be applauding this decision. News 3's Anita Roman explains why the law won't hold up.

Nevada will not follow the national Adam Walsh Act, which requires all sex offenders to register their status. Currently, only tier three offenders are forced to register because they are the most likely to re-offend. Tier one and tier two offenders do not.

After hearing about the decision, the local Rape Crisis Center surprisingly supported the judge's ruling.

The Rape Crisis Center in Las Vegas helped 750 rape victims last year. Executive Director Lu Torres has some strong feelings about the laws that protect sexual assault victims. Her feelings toward the Adam Walsh Act, however, were mixed.

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Senate Bill 1738—The PROTECT Our Children Act

2008-09-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of thousands of children are victims of sexual abuse each year. Due to the sheer lack of resources, law enforcement is unable to follow up on the majority of leads they have.

The PROTECT Our Children Act will:

Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation.

Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding.

Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators.

What you can do!

Go to www.senate.gov to find contact information for the senators in your state. Search for your senator by name or state by clicking on the arrow from either dropdown menu. Contact information is provided here. To send an e-mail, click on "Web Form" below his or her name, and e-mail your letter to make a difference!

It's getting tougher to trick pre-employment drug tests

2008-09-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Laboratories that perform pre-employment drug screening are fighting back — against hundreds of products now on the market that promise to mask evidence of illicit drug use, according to an article scheduled for the Sept. 8 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

In the article, C&EN Senior Business Editor Melody Voith points out that job applicants now have access to an array of products purported to alter urine samples to hide evidence of marijuana, cocaine, and other illegal drugs. Some are supposed to dilute evidence of illicit drugs to levels undetectable by conventional tests. Others used adulterants advertised to inactivate or destroy chemical markers used to identify drugs.

Drug-testers are responding with more sensitive tests that can identify tell-tale chemical signs of diluted urine samples or quickly detect the presence of adulterants. The article also explains that testers may get a boost from proposed new drug testing guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. They would permit use of hair and saliva samples in drug screening of candidates for federal jobs. That screening could indentify illicit drugs more reliably than urine samples alone, the article notes.-American Chemical Society

United States: Labor & Employment Alert: Independent Contractor Agreements Under Attack

2008-09-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Gone are the days of government agencies and regulatory authorities blindly accepting a business classification of individuals as "independent contractor." Indeed, state and federal governments have started to focus on the misclassification of employees as independent contractors. This increased scrutiny makes it critical for employers to determine whether their workers are employees or independent contractors.

Several states have implemented initiatives to ensure that companies are not avoiding overtime pay, unemployment compensation, payroll taxes and employment-related rights and benefits by misclassifying employees as independent contractors. For instance, California has recently sent "employment relationship" questionnaires to "independent contractors" to ensure that those individuals are not more rightfully classified as employees. Moreover, the Illinois Employee Classification Act went into effect in 2008. This law, which applies to the "construction" industry, prohibits the misclassification of employees as independent contractors and provides stiff fines for non-compliance.

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Nationwide Push For Paid Sick Leave Gains Momentum

2008-08-27T13:44:00.001-07:00

The presidential campaign is heating up, but a different campaign is also rapidly gaining momentum: the campaign for paid sick leave. This issue has largely been a sleeping giant these past few years while attention has been focused on minimum wage legislation. Since the 2007 passage of the federal minimum wage law, national attention has been shifting toward paid sick leave.

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New Drug-Testing Rules Lead to Confusion

2008-08-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

A new state law that took effect at the beginning of July requires contractors working for the state to go the extra step when drug testing employees, but so far it has cost one contractor a job.

MEC Construction of Bridgeport lost out on a state Department of Transportation bridge project because it forgot to notarize a statement saying its employees had taken the tests.

The DOT also is going to need to re-advertise bids on two paving projects for the same reason.

The law, called the West Virginia Alcohol and Drug-Free Workplace Act, was passed by the state Legislature earlier this year and went into effect July 1.

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Groundbreaking genetic non-discrimination bill signed into law

2008-08-13T10:57:00.001-07:00

On May 21, 2008, the path to personalized medicine became a little smoother as the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 — or GINA — was signed into law. This law prohibits employers and health insurers from discriminating against individuals based on their genetic information. Physicians must be aware of GINA’s protections so that they can discuss them with their patients when advising them of the benefits and risks associated with genetic screening, counseling, testing and therapies.

Although GINA passed with wide bipartisan support, genetic nondiscrimination legislation was debated in Congress for more than 13 years. When Representative Slaughter introduced the first version of the bill in 1995, many thought that the need for genetic nondiscrimination legislation was premature. She and other key players, such as Senator Ted Kennedy, patient advocacy organizations, civil rights organizations, and physician organizations such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society of Hematology, spent over a decade working to pass this law.

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NAPBS forms European Group for screening

2008-08-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

US Trade Association NAPBS (the National Association of Professional Background Screeners) is forming a European Group comprising a wide spectrum of members involved in the professional screening of pre-employment staff.

NAPBS was founded in 2003 in Morrisville, North Carolina to give the pre-employment screening industry the ability to effectively demonstrate its competence, reliability and willingness to adopt standards and promote Best Practice within the industry. In Europe, while Human Resources (HR) professionals have rapidly adopted pre-employment background screening, the absence of a Trade Association in this maturing market has meant that standards and Best Practice are not developed across all industries.

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The Debate Over Reference Checks: What To Share About Former Employees

2008-07-24T09:52:00.001-07:00

Last month, an appellate court ruling fueled an ongoing debate in healthcare: What is a hospital's responsibility when responding to a reference check? In essence, the court validated a widespread practice: Providing merely "name, rank and serial number" does not subject the former employer to a lawsuit by the new employer if the employee turns out to be a "bad apple." Despite the ruling, questions remain regarding the extent of a hospital's duty to disclose negative information about former staff physicians and other healthcare employees.

Read more here

One lawsuit for the history books

2008-07-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

A man walks into a convenience store and selects an item, goes to the counter to pay for it, and ends up with in the middle of a robbery.

At first blush, you probably think that the poor clerk is the one being robbed, but, in fact, it is the clerk, while at his post, behind the counter who is robbing another patron!

During this unsuccessful attempt to rob his customer, and forgetting that he is locked in, behind the counter, a policeman walks in and stops the robbery in progress.

When the police interview the suspect, he advises that the customer "had alot of money in his money clip so I thought that it would be easy pickin's",but that he "forgot he was at work" (!).

Who is suing?...the patron who walked up to the counter during the robbery.

He is suing the owner of the convenience store for providing an unsafe work/public place, since the patron was "considering filling out an application for employment".

President Bush Signs Amended Executive Order 12989 Requiring Federal Contractors To Use The E-Verify Employment Verification System

2008-07-18T08:20:00.001-07:00

On June 6, 2008, President Bush signed an amendment to Executive Order 12989, which now requires federal contractors to use the E-Verify employment verification system to confirm the employment eligibility of all new employees hired during a contract term and all existing employees assigned to work on a federal contract. Until now, private employers were invited to use the E-Verify system, but enrollment was voluntary.

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Connecticut Becomes Only The Second State To Mandate An Employee Data Protection Policy

2008-07-01T08:17:00.001-07:00

With the State of Connecticut reeling from a series of massive security breaches that have exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of state residents, Connecticut's Governor and General Assembly joined forces in mid-June to make Connecticut only the second state (after Michigan) to mandate that private employers publish a policy on the protection of employee Social Security numbers (SSNs)....

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Negligent Hiring Cases

2008-06-20T11:29:00.002-07:00

Here is a little change from the normal Negligent Hiring cases I usually get. Interesting thing here is that there is a definitive body of work on record, from 2001 that summarizes the invalidity of the candidate's (client's) position, and thus, moots his argument.

I had to tell the lawyer that he has no case, based on his primary assertion, and this is important for all of us, who are still subject to this type of potential assertion from properly dismissed candidates in our daily hiring practices.

Lawyer is white, large law firm in Georgia. Client is African-American, asserts a disparate impact theory rooted in theoretical inherent racial discrimination based in the routine hiring practice of conducting backgroundchecks.

I immediately cited the June, 2001 Study entitled: "Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks and the Racial Hiring Practices of Employers"(Holzer/Raphael Stoll), which can be viewed through the link below:

CLICK HERE

See page 33, Section 6. Conclusion

I think you will all be surprised to see what this highly empirical,statistical study revealed about this assertion.

Tobacco-free hiring reduces costs and improves the workplace

2008-06-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

Facing reduced productivity and higher insurance costs from people who smoke, many employers are deciding not to hire tobacco users. Sarasota County, which also must contain these costs, has adopted a tobacco-free hiring policy that will promote a healthier work force and maintain our responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

Read report here

Sex Offenders Could Be Tracked By Signals From a Satellite

2008-06-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

A domestic violence offender released from custody after agreeing to a plea deal recently spent a morning circling through Northeast Queens. Then, he accelerated onto the Long Island Expressway, a route that brought him closer to where his victim works and lives.

Not too close, though: He knew not to venture anywhere nearer her neighborhood because police and prosecutors were watching his every move via the Global Positioning System strapped to his ankle. He kept driving — on to a job interview in Manhattan.

Read more here

Kroll Releases Employee Criminal Record History Study of Healthcare and Financial Services Industries

2008-06-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

A study of data revealed a telling number of criminal record results and discrepancies in credentials for two notable industries, according to data released by the Background Screening division of Kroll, the world’s leading risk consulting firm.

Michael Rosen, president of Kroll's Background Screening division, stated, “Background screening hit ratios have continued to climb. Information from our recent study shows that in 2007, applicants to financial institutions and healthcare entities have criminal record hit ratios of 11.7% and 16.8%, respectively. Companies that have implemented thorough criminal record checks have experienced a decrease in criminal record hits over time because it becomes widely known to applicants that this employer is serious about its background screening program. Kroll refers to this trend as ‘negative migration’ – a phenomenon in which individuals with criminal records apply for positions at competing employers until they are hired by the organization that fails to do an adequate background check.”

Read the release here