As a User You Know the Federal Employment law but What About State Employment Law?

ARTICLE DATE: 10/03/2012

As an employer you are up to date with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) employment law that is provided by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  But are you current with State Employment Law?  There are currently 28 States that have employment Laws that affect the User of Employment Background Checks.  Individual State Statutes and Codes should be discussed with your legal counsel to confirm you are compliant.  You can request a web link to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and individual State Statutes and Codes from your employment background screening company.

State Employment laws will cover reports such as criminal background checks, employment credit reports, employment and education verifications and more.  An Example of State Labor and Employment law is as follows.

Connecticut CT – Users – Use of Credit Report – The following are positions where a credit report is deemed substantially job related:–1) Any position with a state or federally charted financial institution; 2) A managerial position which involves the direction or control of a unit, division or agency of a business; 3) An employee will have access to personal or financial information of customers, employees or the employer if that information is beyond that presented in a typical retail transaction; 4) An employee has authority to issue payments, transfer money or enter into contracts on behalf of employer; 5) An employee has an expense account, company debit or credit card; 6) An employee has access to confidential/proprietary business information or trade secrets; 7) A credit report is required by law; 8) The employer reasonably believes that the employee has engaged in specific activity that constitutes a violation of law related to employee’s employment; 9) Catch all – the employer has a bona fide purpose for requesting or using information in the credit report that is substantially job related and is disclosed in writing to the employee or applicant.

Other examples of Labor and Employment law:

CT – Users – Use of sealed, expunged or erased records.

MA – Users – Maintenance of records.

NY – Users – Use of arrest record with no conviction.

One of the current Statutes and Code is the use of information found at a social network sites.  Maryland became the first state to pass a law banning employers from asking applicants for their social media password.

Making sure your employment hiring company policy is up to date with State and Federal laws, Statutes and Codes is a must with today’s HR department.  Call your legal counsel today!

DISCLAIMER:

Global Information Network, LLC, articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not intended to be comprehensive, and are not a substitute for and should not be construed as legal advice. Global Information Network, LLC, does not warrant any statements in the articles. Any statutes or laws cited herein should be read in their entirety. You should direct to your own experienced legal counsel questions involving your organization’s compliance with or interpretation or application of laws or regulations and any additional legal requirements that may apply.

The Importance of Using a Federal Criminal Employment Background Check

Criminal Background Check Ensures you Employ the service of only Trustworthy, Safe and Capable Employees
A basic criminal background check is a vital tool to utilize in working to make sure that you employ a competent and honest personnel. Regardless of the space on a job application requesting the applicant to state their criminal background, if any, it becomes an unfortunate reality many employees simply just fail to be truthful relating to criminal records. There are many reasons why conducting an employee criminal background check prior to making any hiring decisions is vital. For instance, utilizing a background check might prevent you from employing a potentially dangerous individual that could harm your financial interests as a result of record of criminal theft. In contrast, a employment background check will help ensure you do not hire anyone with a history of leading to real harm to others and therefore allow you to keep a protected operating atmosphere for all of your employees. Fundamentally using a background check helps ensure for you to hire only trustworthy, safe and qualified personnel.

Types of Criminal history checks
When performing a criminal background check you must make sure you conduct the right type criminal background check. Most companies simply conduct a simple criminal background check for the state they reside in. What these employers often don’t know is the fact this type of background check only checks for criminal offenses committed in that particular jurisdiction and fails to search for things like federal criminal charges. This is because of the fact the nation’s government is separated between the federal government and individual state governments. Each have their particular laws each have their own databases listing who committed what crime and when. Realizing this, it is vital you not only conduct a basic criminal background check, but also a federal criminal background check.

Federal Criminal Checks
A federal criminal background check is vital because often time’s federal criminal charges will be the most serious. For example, many drug charges are federal charges. With no information gathered from a federal criminal background check, you could easily employ individuals having a significant drug-related history. Hiring this type of person can lead to such future issues as under-productivity or increased drug use in the workplace. However, many of these potential issues might be prevented by making a federal criminal background check a component of your pre-employment screening repertoire.

Federal Criminal Checks from the Pros
Conducting a federal criminal background check working with a professional criminal background check company is the best and efficient manner where you can perform an federal criminal background check. Using the criminal background check company’s federal criminal background check service, you may be required to enter such information as the individual’s name, address, and social security number into the web-based search engine. The federal criminal background check will then search numerous federal criminal history related databases. Following a complete database search have been finish, the federal criminal background check will let the user determine if any federal criminal history is located. Possessing this information about a prospective employee permits the hiring organization to have a well-informed and less-subjective evaluation of the potential employ.

Global Information Network, LLC / www.searchinfo.com