Minnesota Enacts "Ban the Box Law"
Effective January 1, 2014, recent amendments to Minnesota law will restrict the timing of pre-employment inquiries by most private employers into a candidate’s criminal past. Employers who are not exempted from the law may not (1) inquire into or consider or require disclosure of criminal record information until the applicant has been selected for an interview or, if there is not an interview, until a conditional job offer of employment has been extended to the applicant, and (2) use any form of employment application that seeks such criminal record information.
The new law does not outright preclude inquiries into or consideration of an applicant’s criminal past. Representative Tim Mahoney, who sponsored the legislation, has stated that the law “does not prohibit private employers from eventually conducting background checks and fully investigating the criminal past of potential employees,” but, “is designed to get applicants past the initial application stage, so that if they qualify for the job, they get a chance to explain themselves.” Further, the statute expressly states that it does not prohibit an employer from notifying applicants that either law or the employer’s policy will disqualify an individual with a particular criminal history background from employment for particular positions. To learn more about the law, please see Littler's ASAP, Minnesota Enacts “Ban the Box Law" Prohibiting Employment Application Criminal History Checkmark Boxes and Restricting Criminal Record Inquiries Until After Interviews or Conditional Job Offers, by Dale Deitchler, Rod Fliegel, Susan Fitzke and Jennifer Mora.
Philip Gordon will be speaking on a range of privacy and data protection issues at the following upcoming events:
On Tuesday, July 26, 2011, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) held its latest meeting on the topic of protections for job applicants with arrest and conviction records under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The full Commission heard remarks from the panelists related to three areas: "Best Practices From Employers," "An Overview of Local, State and Federal Programs and Policies" and "Legal Standards Governing Employers' Consideration of Criminal Arrest and Conviction Records."
Effective October 1, 2011, employers in Connecticut will face new restrictions on the use of credit reports regarding current or prospective employees as a result of the recent enactment this month of Connecticut Public Act 11-223. In enacting the new law, Connecticut becomes the sixth state limiting employers' use of credit reports, following Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Illinois, and Maryland. Similar laws are pending in several other states and at the federal level. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is also conducting related investigations and pursuing at least one disparate impact claim based on the use of credit reports. Thus, employers who use credit history information to inform hiring or personnel decisions in states that have enacted credit check laws should review their policies for compliance, and employers everywhere should continue to monitor developments in this evolving area of the law. To learn more about the Connecticut law and its implications for employers, please continue reading Littler's ASAP,
Last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
When
Recently, the
private employers as well.
In Rea v. Federated Investors, No. 10-1440 (3d Cir. Dec. 15, 2010), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit weighed in on a timely issue for private sector employers: whether Section 525 of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits a private employer from rejecting job applicants based on a bankruptcy filing. The Third Circuit held that the statute's reach does not extend to the hiring process, and it affirmed the district court's order dismissing the case on the pleadings. The court's decision is plainly favorable to private sector employers with operations in the Third Circuit, but employers still should be mindful of several related legal considerations. To learn more about the decision and its implication for employers, please continue reading Littler's ASAP,
Close on the heels of the EEOC’s October 20, 2010, public meeting on the use of credit checks by employers, Loudy Appolon
— Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, and Washington — have recently imposed significant restrictions on employers’ use of credit history for employment purposes. Similar legislation is pending in more than fifteen states, and federal legislation, which would impose restrictions even broader than existing state laws, is pending in Congress. In light of these legislative developments, the EEOC meeting was particularly significant for two reasons.
Recently enacted legislation in Massachusetts will significantly affect employers’ use of criminal history information for employment purposes. While most provisions of the
An article that I recently published in BNA’s
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) issued final rules to implement restrictions on an employer's use of information contained in an applicant's or an employee's credit history. BOLI's final rules effectuate Oregon's new law, "
Last week, Oregon joined a growing national trend, apparently in response to the recession and the foreclosure crisis, that restricts the ability of employers to use credit history in employment decisions. Under the
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