Murderous Cleaner Cited as U.S. Firms Resist Felon-Check Limits

Murderous Cleaner Cited as U.S. Firms Resist Felon-Check Limits

By Stephanie Armour
Aug. 22 (Bloomberg) — Eric McKinney spent more than a year
after his release from prison hunting for a company willing to
hire someone with a drug conviction.
“Now I’m working, I’m saving money, I look at life with a
different perspective,” McKinney, 38, who was released from
jail about three years ago, said in an interview. Lex Products
Corp., an electronic-parts distributor, hired McKinney as an
assembler in Shelton, Connecticut.
Job hunts by ex-convicts such as McKinney may get easier as
governments such as the city of Philadelphia and state of
Massachusetts limit employers’ inquiries into an applicant’s
criminal record. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission has said it is examining whether to put off-limits
old arrest or conviction records to avoid discrimination against
minorities, who have a higher rate of imprisonment.
Trade groups for companies such as Domino’s Pizza Inc. and
Lowe’s Cos. are working to head off added federal restrictions,
saying background checks help protect coworkers and customers,
Bloomberg Government reported.
“As long as there is workplace violence, fraud, theft and
a need to protect vulnerable populations, there will always be a
need to review the criminal histories of applicants for certain
positions,” according to a July 22 letter to the EEOC from 14
groups such as the National Restaurant Association, which
represents Domino’s, and the Retail Industry Leaders
Association, which has Lowe’s as a member.
Companies are at risk of being sued for “negligent
hiring” if former felons cause harm to co-workers, the business
groups said. Companies have been found liable for as much as
$26.5 million in such cases.

Raped, Beaten

Limiting employer reviews of criminal records is also
opposed by victims’ advocates such as Lucia Bone, who founded
Dallas-based Sue Weaver C.A.U.S.E., or Consumer Awareness of
Unsafe Service Employees, after her sister was murdered by a
worker who came to clean the air ducts in her home.
The thought that violent felons are hired to work in
hotels, make house calls to repair appliances or otherwise come
into contact with the public makes “the hair on the back of my
neck just crawl,” Bone said in an interview.
Cathy Sue Weaver was raped and beaten to death in August
2001 by the employee sent by a company to her home in Orlando,
Florida, according to the group’s website. He was a convicted
sex offender on parole, the group said.
“If they’re coming into my home, I want them to do a
background check,” Bone said. “This can be a life-or-death
issue.”

70% Screen

An estimated 65 million U.S. adults, or about 21 percent of
the 2010 population older than 18, had a criminal record,
according to National Employment Law Project.
More than 70 percent of large employers conduct criminal
checks on all job candidates, according to a survey last year by
the Alexandria, Virginia-based Society for Human Resource
Management, an association of personnel managers.
Twenty-five cities and five states have limits on
employers’ use of criminal records for hiring, according to the
National Employment Law Project, which tracks legislation on
background checks.
In Massachusetts, most employers can’t ask for criminal-
history information, such as arrests and convictions, on job
applications under a 2010 law. Such questions can be asked when
a candidate comes in for an interview.
A Philadelphia law bars many employers from collecting
criminal information on an application or asking questions in a
first interview, Susan Lessack, a lawyer for employers at Pepper
Hamilton LLP in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, said in an e-mail.

Snap Judgments

The restrictions are intended to prevent snap judgments
before an applicant is fully reviewed, Lessack said.
Waiting to look into an applicant’s past adds to the cost
of recruitment, according to Robert Pickell, senior vice
president of customer solutions at HireRight Inc., an Irvine,
California-based provider of worker screening.
“Companies spend a lot of time and money with a candidate
and then may find out they have a criminal record and may not be
right for a position,” Pickell said in an interview.
U.S. rules are less strict. The Fair Credit Reporting Act,
which governs employment screening, lets companies review arrest
records dating back seven years, as well as all convictions,
after notifying applicants, Stacey Smiricky, a Chicago lawyer
with Baker & Daniels LLP who represents employers, said in an
interview.

1987 Guidance

The U.S. bars companies from setting blanket policies
denying jobs to people convicted of crimes, Carol Miaskoff,
assistant legal counsel at the EEOC, said in an interview. The
guidance, adopted in 1987, requires case-by-case judgment of
risks posed by a particular applicant for a specific job, she
said. A revised guideline may further restrict access to some
conviction records.
State and local legislation is being introduced now because
applicants with criminal records are having a harder time
getting jobs as the stagnant economy erases positions, Maurice
Emsellem, policy co-director with the New York-based National
Employment Law Project, said in an interview. U.S. unemployment
has exceeded 9 percent in 25 of the past 27 months.
“Attempts to ease unemployment frustration or re-entry
desires should not come at the expense of keeping people and
businesses safe from physical or financial harm,” according to
the July letter from groups including the restaurant association
that represents companies such as Burger King Corp., CKE
Restaurants Inc. and Sodexo.

Domino’s Driver Ban

Domino’s, with more than 185,000 employees, reviews the
nature of an ex-convict’s crime and whether the employee poses a
risk, Tim McIntyre, a spokesman for the Ann Arbor, Michigan-
based chain of 9,400 stores, said in an e-mail. Domino’s won’t
hire people convicted of violent crimes as pizza-delivery
drivers, he said. He declined to comment on the state and local
laws limiting the use of criminal records.
Lowe’s, the second-largest U.S. home-improvement retailer
after Home Depot Inc., checks records “for the protection of
our customers, employees and our business,” Karen Cobb, a
spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. The Mooresville, North Carolina-
based company has 161,000 full-time employees.
Ex-convicts and employers who make a practice of hiring
them say they can be especially dedicated employees.
Bo Sims, who said he was convicted for crimes including
armed robbery, credits getting a food-preparation job with D.C.
Central Kitchen Inc. for giving him stability. The Washington-
based group provides meal distribution and job training.
“Now I’ve got a car and a bank account, rather than
robbing a bank,” Sims, 56, said in an interview. “It’s really
hard for ex-offenders to get jobs.”
Lex Products, the company where McKinney works, found
technical-school graduates it hired griped about working extra
hours, while ex-convicts recruited at a job fair welcomed the
opportunity, Walter Donne, the human-resource manager, said in
an interview.
McKinney said that now that he has a job, “I’d like to go
back to school and be a juvenile counselor.”

For Related News and Information:
News on Labor: NI LABOR <GO>
Labor Unions: UNIO <GO>
For Employment and Labor Law: BLLE <GO>
Stories on criminal law: NI CRIMLAW <GO>

–Editors: Steve Geimann, Larry Liebert

To contact the reporter on this story:
Stephanie Armour in Washington at +1-202-654-7337 or
sarmour@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry Liebert at +1-202-624-1936 or
lliebert@bloomberg.net.