One in a series.
Section 432.9 is added to Section 2 of the California Labor Code to read: (a) A state or local agency shall not ask an applicant for employment to disclose, orally or in writing, information concerning the conviction history of the applicant, including any inquiry about conviction history on any employment application, until the agency has determined the applicant meets the minimum employment qualifications, as stated in any notice issued for the position. – Assembly Bill 218, approved by Gov. Brown, Oct. 10, 2013
In what may be considered a latter day version of the outlawed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, last Friday marked the second anniversary of California’s quietly enacted ban-the-box law.
“Change in the state law became effective on July 1, 2014,” Serena Wright-Black, Human Resources director for the city of Culver City, said yesterday.
Adapting to the change “has not been difficult at all,” she said. “We just revised our job application to remove the question. We developed a secondary supplemental page.
“We go through our initial screening and determine whether the person will move forward,” Ms. Wright-Black said. “When the applicant comes in for the secondary process, be it a written test or an interview, at that point we will give the person the conviction page to fill out along with their other reference information.”
Nothing subtle or complex about the change.
The language of the law rings with clarity. It forbids employers to include a question about his or her conviction record on the initial employment application.
Ms. Wright-Black said that “when someone is seeking employment, you are not allowed to ask that question until after you have considered whether the applicant meets the minimum requirements of the job,
“When you are moving the person forward in the process, then you can ask the question about their criminal background.”
The topic broke into the news over the holiday weekend. Mayor Garcetti said he had rounded up 32 other mayors – including Culver City’s Jim Clarke – to join him in petitioning two college application companies to eliminate the criminal-background question from their app forms.
President Obama is an enthusiastic supporter of this law that, so far, has been passed by 19 states.
(To be continued)
