January

The way Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) reports driver violations to the mega database that feeds data to the Pre-Employment Screening Program and Comprehensive, Safety, Accountability enforcement program is changing.

The FMCSA published a notice on Dec. 2nd that outlines the way violations will be reported to the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). That database supplies the roadside inspection and violation data to the PSP and the CSA program. The PSP program provides listings of all driver roadside inspection violations and crash reports to prospective employers. CSA scores and weights violations to determine motor carrier and driver compliance in various categories.

The motor carrier rankings are public, but the driver ratings are used internally at FMCSA for enforcement only. With the announced changes, challenged violations that have a corresponding citation that is either dismissed or given a ""not guilty"" verdict will have the challenged violation removed. Citations that are dismissed by a court but have fines or court fees assessed will be reported as convictions to the system. "

"U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced the Equal Employment for All Act with several other Senators. The legislation would prohibit employers from requiring potential employees to disclose their credit history as part of the job application process. It was previously thought that credit history may provide insight into an individual's character, but research has shown that an individual's credit rating has little to no correlation with his or her ability to be successful in the workplace. ""A bad credit rating is far more often the result of unexpected medical costs, unemployment, economic downturns, or other bad breaks than it is a reflection on an individual's character or abilities,"" Senator Warren said. ""Families have not fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis, and too many Americans are still searching for jobs. This is about basic fairness -- let people compete on the merits, not on whether they already have enough money to pay all their bills."" A study from the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year suggested that errors in credit reports are common and, in many cases, have been difficult to correct. ""It makes no sense to make it harder for people to get jobs because of a system of credit reporting that has no correlation with job performance and that can be riddled with inaccuracies,"" Warren said. Senator Warren's bill is based on H.R. 645, which was introduced by Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) in 2011."

The company known for their signature character, Mickey Mouse, is defending a class action claim based on questions about its background screening policies. A lawsuit was filed against the Walt Disney Co. and the complaint alleges that Disney 's policy for notifying applicants about background checks has violated the FCRA. The plaintiff is alleging that Disney failed to provide notice of adverse action, a process required by the FCRA when an adverse employment decision is based on any portion of a background check pursuant to 15 USC 1681b(b)(3) and 15 USC 1681m(a). The plaintiff 's background check showed a criminal conviction that had later been expunged. The plaintiff 's argument is that Disney did not give him the opportunity to clear up the inaccuracy of the report. Instead, the company took action and made the decision not to hire based on inaccurate information that the Plaintiff never had the opportunity to cure. Employers should make sure to have a policy for adverse action procedures that includes both pre-adverse and adverse action notifications, and that all hiring managers under-stand the need to follow those policies with a uniform process. The best practice is to reasonably evaluate each decision, and when you can, give the job applicant the benefit of notice. By doing so, you might avoid being the next class action defendant.