April

The Grievor, a bus driver custodian, pleaded guilty to sexual offences involving minors twenty years ago and was convicted. One of the terms of his sentence prohibited him from seeking or maintaining employment that would put him in contact with children under the age of sixteen for a four-year period.

The events giving rise to the conviction occurred before the Grievor began employment with the school board, but following his conviction, the Grievor was fired. In pursuing its grievance, the union argued that the Grievor should be retained in employment and assigned duties, which did not involve contact with students. The arbitrator concluded - without any direct evidence - that retaining the Grievor in employment would be seen negatively by the public and, more importantly, by the parents of children in the school district. In weighing this against the Grievor's fifteen years of discipline-free employment, the arbitrator was unable to conclude there was no risk of future harm to the students and concluded, therefore, that the employment relationship could not be salvaged. The grievance was dismissed.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have released the results of the most recent Westat Survey conducted on the accuracy of E-Verify, providing further validation that E-Verify is an accurate and robust tool. Though the survey was completed in July 2012, the results are finally being released to the public. Westat conducted the accuracy survey on E-Verify by evaluating the E-Verify Transaction Database.

It’s worth highlighting that employer activity while logged into the E-Verify system is tracked and monitored by USCIS. The survey found that E-Verify accuracy is improving since the last survey released in 2009, which evaluated the tentative nonconfirmation (TNC) rates. The TNC rate in this report declined from 0.7% to 0.3%. Where a secondary review of a TNC is conducted by USCIS, the accuracy rate is 90% effective compared to a 58% effective rate in the absence of secondary reviews.

A substantial portion of the survey was devoted to providing USCIS with recommendations on how to increase E-Verify’s accuracy moving forward, and other recommendations that would streamline the employment eligibility verification process. Some of Westat’s recommendations have already been implemented by USCIS, which potentially explains why this survey wasn’t made publicly available until now.