Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Form I-9 Compliance, LLC Launches the First Web-Based Form I-9 Employment Verification Service and Begins Executing Its Reseller Strategy
Form I-9 Compliance, LLC, the first federally-approved Designated Agent of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) for Form I-9 employment verifications, announced that it has launched the first web-based service that enables employers to easily conduct legal right to work Form I-9 employment verifications on new employees.
Read more…
Preventative Measures Background checks can help contractors save face
They also can help save lives. So why are so few in the cleaning industry actually performing them? Read more…
$10 million wrongful death lawsuit filed against employer
The family of slain Truro writer Christa Worthington has filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against her alleged killer and the Cape Cod trash-hauling business that employed him at the time of the slaying. The lawsuit alleges that the company failed to use reasonable care in hiring McCowen, who had a history of criminal and violent behavior. Read more…
Screening Of Workers On The Rise
Employers are running background checks on long-standing employees as well as new ones. The number of checks on all workers has tripled during the past eight years, experts said, mostly because of growing security concerns, the technological ease in obtaining the information and its declining costs. Read more…
Workplace violence is on the upswing, say HR leaders
Workplace violence has increased over the past two years despite federal statistics to the contrary, a majority of senior executives responsible for human resources or security say in an April 2005 survey. In addition, more than half (58 percent) report that disgruntled employees have threatened senior managers in the past 12 months. But despite their view that workplace violence is a bigger problem today, only 15 percent of those companies have increased their spending to combat the problem, the Prince & Associates survey found. Read more…
Wal-Mart, employee sued - Retailer faulted in molestation case
A Phoenix law firm has filed a "Jane Doe" lawsuit against big-box retailer Wal-Mart for failing to check the background of an employee accused of molesting several young girls in a Scottsdale store. The suit, filed by the law offices of Gregory A. Patton in Maricopa County Superior Court, alleges that Wal-Mart either did not check Mark D. Ricchetti's criminal background or hired him knowing of previous criminal charges when he came to work as a greeter in the company's store on Northsight Boulevard in 1998.
Read more…
Screening process can have its drawbacks. Background information is only as good as its source.
Eighty percent of employers were conducting criminal background checks on potential hires in 2003, up from 51 percent in 1996, according to surveys by the Society for Human Resource Management.
Experts attribute the trend to technological advances that have eased the collection and sale of personal information; more media coverage of dishonest job applicants; employers' fears of negligent hiring litigation; and a heightened sense of insecurity after the Sept. 11 attacks. A rush of online data brokers are cashing in, offering services at a wide range of prices.
But accuracy also can vary widely, said Shawn Bushway, associate professor of criminology at the University of Maryland. "These companies are basically running unchecked and doing what they want, and we don't know how accurate they are," Bushway said.Checks vary widely
Bushway's study of the industry found 467 companies offering background searches on the Internet. The ones that claim to do national background searches for as low as $10 typically piece together data from a variety of public records sources, including correctional databases, online sex offender registries and county courts that sell their records to data companies.
Other more established firms claim to be professional background screeners and have recently formed an association that has adopted a set of standards in an effort to distinguish themselves. They charge anywhere from $30 to more than $200 for the so-called "gold standard": physically sending runners to courthouses in counties where the prospective employer knows an applicant has lived, Bushway said.Although these companies are likely more accurate than their bargain rate competitors, even they are suspect, Bushway's study found.
Read more…
Form I-9 Compliance, LLC, the first federally-approved Designated Agent of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) for Form I-9 employment verifications, announced that it has launched the first web-based service that enables employers to easily conduct legal right to work Form I-9 employment verifications on new employees.
Read more…
Preventative Measures Background checks can help contractors save face
They also can help save lives. So why are so few in the cleaning industry actually performing them? Read more…
$10 million wrongful death lawsuit filed against employer
The family of slain Truro writer Christa Worthington has filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against her alleged killer and the Cape Cod trash-hauling business that employed him at the time of the slaying. The lawsuit alleges that the company failed to use reasonable care in hiring McCowen, who had a history of criminal and violent behavior. Read more…
Screening Of Workers On The Rise
Employers are running background checks on long-standing employees as well as new ones. The number of checks on all workers has tripled during the past eight years, experts said, mostly because of growing security concerns, the technological ease in obtaining the information and its declining costs. Read more…
Workplace violence is on the upswing, say HR leaders
Workplace violence has increased over the past two years despite federal statistics to the contrary, a majority of senior executives responsible for human resources or security say in an April 2005 survey. In addition, more than half (58 percent) report that disgruntled employees have threatened senior managers in the past 12 months. But despite their view that workplace violence is a bigger problem today, only 15 percent of those companies have increased their spending to combat the problem, the Prince & Associates survey found. Read more…
Wal-Mart, employee sued - Retailer faulted in molestation case
A Phoenix law firm has filed a "Jane Doe" lawsuit against big-box retailer Wal-Mart for failing to check the background of an employee accused of molesting several young girls in a Scottsdale store. The suit, filed by the law offices of Gregory A. Patton in Maricopa County Superior Court, alleges that Wal-Mart either did not check Mark D. Ricchetti's criminal background or hired him knowing of previous criminal charges when he came to work as a greeter in the company's store on Northsight Boulevard in 1998.
Read more…
Screening process can have its drawbacks. Background information is only as good as its source.
Eighty percent of employers were conducting criminal background checks on potential hires in 2003, up from 51 percent in 1996, according to surveys by the Society for Human Resource Management.
Experts attribute the trend to technological advances that have eased the collection and sale of personal information; more media coverage of dishonest job applicants; employers' fears of negligent hiring litigation; and a heightened sense of insecurity after the Sept. 11 attacks. A rush of online data brokers are cashing in, offering services at a wide range of prices.
But accuracy also can vary widely, said Shawn Bushway, associate professor of criminology at the University of Maryland. "These companies are basically running unchecked and doing what they want, and we don't know how accurate they are," Bushway said.Checks vary widely
Bushway's study of the industry found 467 companies offering background searches on the Internet. The ones that claim to do national background searches for as low as $10 typically piece together data from a variety of public records sources, including correctional databases, online sex offender registries and county courts that sell their records to data companies.
Other more established firms claim to be professional background screeners and have recently formed an association that has adopted a set of standards in an effort to distinguish themselves. They charge anywhere from $30 to more than $200 for the so-called "gold standard": physically sending runners to courthouses in counties where the prospective employer knows an applicant has lived, Bushway said.Although these companies are likely more accurate than their bargain rate competitors, even they are suspect, Bushway's study found.
Read more…
