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A school bus driver turned away from a job as a SEPTA bus operator because of drug conviction dating back nearly 20 years filed a federal lawsuit against the transit agency Wednesday. The suit said that SEPTA routinely misuses criminal history information turned up in background checks to eliminate potential employees, even when the offenses happened long ago and are irrelevant to the job. SEPTA said it was looking into the lawsuit and had no immediate comment. The suit said SEPTA's background check and criminal histories violate federal employment laws. The suit comes as state, federal and...

The NAACP New York State Conference Metropolitan Council of Branches has filed a class action against employers who use leading job search sites Monster, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter to illegally post hundreds of job listings in New York with blanket bans on applicants with felony convictions. New York City law prohibits blanket rejections of applicants based on criminal history. The employers named in this Complaint exemplify the wide-range of companies engaged in this illegal practice and include large employers in the technology and information management industry like Philips, NTT Data and...

[Reproduced with permission from Daily Labor Report, 212 DLR A-1 (Nov. 3, 2015). Copyright 2015 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) .] A private company that operates prisons, and a consumer background reporting firm are violating federal and state fair credit laws by not providing job applicants with timely notice of reports including criminal histories that are used to deny them employment, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ( Keels v. GEO Grp. Inc. , E.D.N.Y., No. 15-6261, 10/30/15). The proposed class action...

When Mayor de Blasio signed the Fair Chance Act this month, New York took a welcome step forward. The new law prohibits employers from inquiring about a job applicant’s criminal history before they have made a conditional offer. It bans the box — “check here if you have been convicted of a crime” — that is a symbol of permanent unemployment for so many. It does not prohibit employers from taking that history into consideration. It does, however, make sure that every job seeker gets a fair shot first. With this law, New York City is beginning to face its history of allowing employers to...