Compliance

Colorado’s restriction against employers’ use of credit reports for employment purposes goes into effect on July 1, 2013. Colorado is the ninth state to restrict employers’ use of credit checks in hiring and retention decisions and follows California, Maryland, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, which have all passed similar legislation.

Last summer, I reviewed a couple of states' social media legislation regarding sex offenders. 2013, however, has seen a fast-moving trend in state-level social media laws that directly affect employers. Arkansas, Colorado and Washington are the latest states to implement workplace social media privacy laws this past April and May. As of June 5, 2013, there are nine states with social media workplace privacy laws in place, which also include Maryland, Illinois, California, Michigan, Utah, and New Mexico.

On September 30, 1999 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Department of Inspector General released a Special Advisory Bulletin on The Effect of Exclusion from Participation in Federal Health Care Programs. The brief document set off a deluge of questions and requests for clarification on critical policy guidelines in the fourteen years following its release.

What’s all that ruckus you ask, well PreCheck’s been celebrating.

As an employer relying on a third party to run background checks on job candidates or existing employees, you must follow the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Your responsibilities are detailed in the document entitled “Notice to Users of Consumer Reports: Obligations of Users under the FCRA.” Below is a breakdown of your essential duties under the Act. If you have any questions, consult qualified counsel.

The March 8, 2013 release of the new Form I-9 has brought with it new questions on the best way for Human Resources departments to handle this ever-so-complicated hiring requirement: What is that bar code box for? Which e-mail address should my employee provide? What's up with the new foreign passport requirement? For answers to these questions and more, PreCheck offered a complimentary Form I-9 Training Webinar on Thursday, April 25 featuring guest speaker Immigration Attorney Nicole ("Nici") A.

On May 2, 2012 Governor Nathan Deal signed into law significant changes to O.C.G.A. §35-3-37, the law that governs expungement, restriction, correction and supplementation of criminal records in the state of Georgia. This legislative reform is aimed at removing barriers to employment and housing for individuals with criminal history in order to reduce recidivism rates in the state. The Georgia Justice Project (GJP) focuses its mission on breaking the cycle of poverty and crime. GJP sites that at the time of their arrest, 90% of individuals are considered below the poverty line.

Last month, PreCheck partnered with the national employment law firm Fisher & Phillips to present a webinar on the legal environment employers can expect in the next four years. In case you missed it, you can read more about it and access the presentation slides from our blog. The webinar spawned a few interesting questions from attendees that our blog readers might find helpful. The answers are provided by one of the webinar's presenters, Kevin Troutman.

Earlier today, the United States Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) released the long-awaited revision of the Form I-9 (Rev. 03/08/13)N. Read the full announcement here. You can download the new form here.

PreCheck's Vice President of Compliance, Vu Do's latest article discussing the implications of the EEOC's Enforcement Guidance on employers' use of criminal records was published in the March/April 2013 issue of Compliance & Ethics Professional. If you do not currently subscribe to this publication of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics, you may download the complete article here.