Discrimination

Can Employers Automatically Exclude Job Applicants with Criminal Records?

By Lester Rosen, President of ESR
From the ESR Mail Box
Question:
Can an employer automatically exclude an applicant with a felony or criminal record? What about automated processes that use a system to identity applicants with a criminal record?
Answer:
The one thing that an employer can be advised with some certainty is that any sort of automatic policy based [...]

Have a criminal conviction in your past? You’re Fired! (not so fast)

Accenture, one of the largest management consulting firms in the world, conducts background checks that discriminate against African Americans and Latinos, a class action lawsuit filed in New York federal court today alleges.

The lawsuit, filed o…

Credit Reporting Agency Fights to Preserve Use of Credit Checks during Employment Background Checks

By Lester Rosen, President of ESR & Thomas Ahearn, ESR Staff Writer
With 15 million workers currently unemployed according to recent Department of Labor statistics, it has been argued that job applicants risk getting caught in a “Catch-22” situation where they have bad credit because they cannot get jobs but cannot get jobs because they have [...]

EEOC Warns Employers of Increase in Discrimination Lawsuits Based on Background Checks

By Thomas Ahearn, ESR Staff Writer
As a recently filed lawsuit alleging one of the largest management consulting firms in the world conducted discriminatory background checks against African-Americans and Latinos shows, employers need to fully understand the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) policies regarding the use of background checks during the pre-employment screening process – [...]

Discrimination Lawsuit Shows Importance of Employer Policy on the Use of Criminal Records During Background Checks

By Thomas Ahearn, ESR Staff Writer
A recently filed class action lawsuit – which alleges that one of the largest management consulting firms in the world conducted background checks that discriminated against African-Americans and Latinos – underscores the importance of employers understanding the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) policy regarding the use of criminal records [...]

Use of Workers’ Compensation Records: Extreme Caution Advised

By Les Rosen, Employment Screening Resources
Employers have become very aware of the high costs of compensation claims. The loss to American business from both fraudulent claims and re-injury causes many employers to want to know whether a job applicant has a history of filing workers’ compensation claims.
At the same time, the Federal Americans with Disabilities [...]

Background Check Bashing -Either Too Much or Too Little Depending upon the Most Recent Headline

By Les Rosen, Employment Screening Resources
The recent headlines dealing with background checks demonstrate that to some extent, Americans are conflicted about the whole topic of background checks.
On one hand, as reported in past blogs by Employment Screening Resources (ESR), discrimination and privacy advocates feel that background checks are too intrusive and unfair. The EEOC has [...]

Date of Birth Information, Age Discrimination and Background Checks

Most authorities agree that any information tending to reveal a job applicant’s age should not be requested on an employer application form or during an oral interview. Asking for date of birth during the selection process could violate the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 as well as various state civil rights laws. [...]

The Unfair Use of Credit Reports and Criminal Records and the EEOC E-Race Initiative

According to an article in HR Morning, the two biggest headaches for employers when it comes to hiring are the blanket  exclusion of individuals with poor credit histories or a criminal, record, and not showing a correlation between background checks and the job itself. 
The author notes that in response to seeing an increase in claims of [...]

2010 Trend on Increased focus on whether credit reports and criminal records are discriminatory

2010 Trends in Screening–Trend One:
Employment Screening Resources (ESR), a leading national online employment screening background firm, is releasing the ESR “Third Annual Top Ten Trends in the Pre-Employment Background Screening Industry” for 2010.   ESR has identified new trends that are starting to make a difference, as well as old trends that have evolved as the screening [...]