Until recently, employers have been able to use an employee’s previous pay as a justification for different wages between employees of different sexes because it fell within the “any factor other than sex” exception to the EPA. In Rizo, the Fresno County Office of Education used a female employee’s prior pay to explain why it paid her less than men who performed equal work. The Ninth Circuit held that using prior pay to justify unequal wages perpetuated the very wage gap the EPA was designed to cure. Rizo makes it clear employers can no longer use previous pay to justify unequal wages under the “any factor other than sex” exception to the EPA. While Rizo is only binding in the Ninth Circuit (essentially the West Coast), employers in every state should be careful about asking job applicants about their previous pay and, in general, refrain from asking such questions.
As ban-the-box turns 20, compliance challenges grow
On July 15, 1998, Hawaii became the first state to adopt a fair-chance law applicable to both private and public employers. The law bars employers from inquiring into, or considering, the criminal record of a prospective employee until after a conditional offer of employment has been made.
Since then, 30 other states — and more than 150 cities and counties — have adopted some form of “ban-the-box” legislation or fair-chance law designed to give applicants a shot at getting hired without the stigma of a conviction or arrest record, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP).
Particularly for multi-state employers, the patchwork of disparate laws can be daunting from a compliance standpoint. So how are they coping? HR Dive spoke with three experienced employment law attorneys to get their insights.
How Much Do You Really Want to Know About Your Employees? The Growing Popularity of Continuous Background Checks
Most companies perform background checks on employees at the outset as part of the application / new hire process. A number of background check companies are now offering “continuous screening” or re-screening services as a risk management tool where background checks are performed on all employees annually or semi-annually. Continuous background checks are gaining popularity among employers. In theory, this will catch items that were missed during the new hire process as well as criminal events that have transpired since the employee was hired. This is viewed as a risk management tool to protect against employee theft, embezzlement, fraud, violence, etc.
The Quality of a County Criminal Search
County Criminal Searches are the most accurate and comprehensive searches you can run because courthouses keep detailed information on file for each case number and most will update their records daily. A standard county search includes both district and superior court searches, pulling information on all felony and misdemeanor charges in that county. Just doing a county search would be as invaluable as just running a national search. You would need to know exactly where to look for it to be beneficial. There is no database that houses every single court’s records. Running both searches is really the only way to cover all your bases.
The Swiss Cheese that is a National Criminal Database Search
The National Criminal Database Search is the best search to start your background check but it should never be the only search ran. The issue with this report is that it’s not a very thorough search. There are twelve privately owned criminal databases across the country. Each database decides which sources to gather information from and how often they want to update the information. As a Consumer Reporting Agency, we have to decide which databases will give us the most up to date information because this is where we start our search.
