Attorney Charles Jerome Ware is a former federal administrative law judge (ALJ), former General Counsel for the 30,000-member chapter of the EEOC, and a renowned best-selling author.
www.CharlesJeromeWare.com ("We fight. You win.")
Attorney Charles Jerome Ware is renowned and consistently ranked among the best attorneys and legal counsellors in the United States. [GQ Magazine, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Columbia Flier, USA TODAY, The Howard County Sun, The Anniston Star, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX-TV NEWS, WHUR, WHUT, MPT, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, ABA Journal, et al.]
The United State Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing two corporations, BMW and DOLLAR GENERAL, alleging that these businesses are discriminating indirectly against African Americans by using criminal background checks to screen out workers.
The EEOC said BMW effectively fired 70 black employees with criminal histories from a facility in South Carolina, even though many had been there for years. One woman with 14 years under her belt was let go after a misdemeanor conviction surfaced that was more than 20 years old and carried a $137 fine, according to the EEOC’s lawsuit.
The agency also alleged that retailer Dollar General revoked job offers to two black women after conducting criminal background checks. In one case, the EEOC said that the records were inaccurate but that Dollar General declined to reconsider the woman’s application. The other involved a six-year-old drug conviction.
The EEOC's Charlotte district office filed suit in U.S. District Court of South Carolina, Spartanburg Division against BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC, and a separate suit was filed in Chicago against Dolgencorp, doing business as Dollar General.
In the suit against BMW, the EEOC alleges that BMW disproportionately screened out African Americans from jobs, and that the policy is not job related and consistent with business necessity. The claimants were employees of UTi Integrated Logistics, Inc. ("UTi"), which provided logistic services to BMW at the South Carolina facility. The logistics services included warehouse and distribution assistance, transportation services and manufacturing support.
Since 1994, BMW has had a criminal conviction policy that denies facility access to BMW employees and employees of contractors with certain criminal convictions. However, when UTi assigned the claimants to work at the BMW facility, UTi screened the employees according to UTi's criminal conviction policy. UTi's criminal background check limited review to convictions within the prior seven years. BMW's policy has no time limit with regard to convictions. The policy is a blanket exclusion without any individualized assessment of the nature and gravity of the crimes, the ages of the convictions, or the nature of the claimants' respective positions.
In Illinois, the Chicago office of the EEOC filed a nationwide lawsuit based on discrimination charges filed by two rejected black applicants. That lawsuit charges that Dollar General conditions all of its job offers on criminal background checks, which results in a disparate impact against blacks. Dollar General operates 10,000 stores in 40 states, plus 11 distribution centers. Ninety percent of all Dollar General employees are store clerks who are both stockers and cashiers at the stores.
According to the EEOC, one of the applicants who had filed a charge with EEOC was given a conditional employment offer, although she had disclosed a six-year-old conviction for possession of a controlled substance. Her application also showed that she had previously worked for another discount retailer as a cashier-stocker for four years. Nevertheless, her job offer was allegedly revoked because Dollar General's practice was to use her type of conviction as a disqualification factor for 10 years.
The other applicant who filed an EEOC charge was fired by Dollar General although, according to the EEOC, the conviction records check report about her was wrong - she did not have the felony conviction attributed to her. The EEOC said that although she advised the Dollar General store manager of the mistake in the report, the company did not reverse its decision and her firing stood.
Eliminating barriers in recruitment and hiring, especially class-based recruitment and hiring practices that discriminate against racial, ethnic and religious groups, older workers, women, and people with disabilities, is one of six national priorities identified by the Commission's Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP).
On April 25, 2012, the EEOC issued updated enforcement guidance on employer use of arrest and conviction records. The EEOC is a member of the federal interagency Reentry Council, a Cabinet-level interagency group convened to examine all aspects of reentry of individuals with criminal records. Among other issues, the Reentry Council is working to reduce barriers to employment, so that people with past criminal involvement - after they have been held accountable and paid their dues - can compete for appropriate work opportunities in order to support themselves and their families, pay their taxes, and contribute to the economy.
The EEOC enforces the federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. More information about the EEOC is available on its website, www.eeoc.gov.
[see, www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/6-11-13.cfm/EEOC Files Suit Against Two Employers for Us of Criminal Background Checks; www.washingtonpost.com/bmw, dollar general/6-11-13; online.wsj.com/6-11-2013/article/EEOC Files Suits Against BMW, Dollar; newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/EEOC files suit over employers]
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