Daniel Wiessner
Thu, December 21, 2023
An employee walks back towards a Ralphs grocery store, which is owned by Kroger Co, ahead of company results in Pasadena
By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) - California filed a lawsuit against Kroger Co subsidiary Ralph's Grocery Co on Thursday, accusing it of violating state law by screening out hundreds of job applicants based on their criminal history.
The lawsuit, filed in state court by the California Civil Rights Department (CRD), accuses Ralph's of flouting a 2018 law that bars most employers from asking applicants about their criminal record prior to offering them a job.
The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages for affected job applicants, for lost wages and benefits and mental and emotional distress, and punitive damages.
Ralph's, which operates more than 180 grocery stores in California, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kevin Kish, the agency's director, said in a statement that the law provides crucial protections to millions of people with criminal records.
"We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment," he said.
The agency said the lawsuit is the first-ever filed under the law, known as the Fair Chance Act. The law also provides that employers can only reject prospective employees based on their criminal history when their convictions have a direct relationship to a job.
The agency said it has investigated hundreds of complaints alleging violations of the Fair Chance Act since the law was adopted and has secured about 70 settlements, including separate $100,000 settlements with a fire protection district and a construction company.
The agency said it could not reach a settlement with Ralph's, prompting it to sue.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Leslie Adler)
California lawsuit says Ralphs broke the law by asking job-seekers about their criminal histories
Associated Press
Thu, December 21, 2023
FILE -Francisco Luna collects shopping carts outside of a Ralphs grocery store in Los Angeles on Monday, Dec. 5, 2005. California sued the Ralphs supermarket chain on Thursday, Ded. 21, 2023, alleging that it violated state law by asking job-seekers whether they had criminal records and illegally rejecting hundreds of applicants (AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California sued the Ralphs supermarket chain on Thursday, alleging that it violated state law by asking job-seekers whether they had criminal records and illegally rejecting hundreds of applicants.
The California Civil Rights Department contends that Ralphs Grocery Co. “has ignored and continues to ignore” the Fair Chance Act “by screening out otherwise qualified applicants on the basis of criminal histories that do not have any adverse relationship with the duties of the job for which they were applying,” according to a departmental press statement.
The law, which took effect in 2018, was designed to reduce the chance of ex-convicts reoffending by giving them opportunities to earn a living.
In general, employers with five or more workers can't ask applicants about their criminal histories before making job offers, and must follow specific procedures for rejecting them. The law says employers can't rescind a job offer if the applicant's conviction, which could be for a misdemeanor, wouldn't directly affect job responsibilities.
Instead, Ralphs job-seekers were given what the suit calls a “confusing and misleading” application form that included questions seeking disclosure of their criminal histories. Most candidates who had their job offers revoked weren't given any way to contact Ralphs to challenge the decision as the law requires, the statement said.
"The instructions provide detailed, superfluous instructions concerning how to report convictions, after telling applicants that they do not need to answer the question. Additionally, by suggesting specific convictions that should not be reported in California, the instructions necessarily suggest that other convictions should be reported," the lawsuit contends.
Between 2018 and 2022, more than 70% of California applicants answered the question anyway, according to the suit.
Some candidates “lost their job offers based on convictions for a single misdemeanor count of excessive noise. Other applicants who had convictions from other states for simple cannabis possession were also disqualified,” the department's statement said.
“When roughly 70 million Americans have some sort of record, policies like those employed by Ralphs aren’t just discriminatory and against California law, they don’t make sense,” the department’s director, Kevin Kish, said in the statement. “Ralphs has continued to unlawfully deny jobs to qualified candidates and that’s why we’re taking them to court.”
An email seeking comment from Ralphs’ corporate owner, The Kroger Co., wasn’t immediately returned.
Ralphs has 185 stores in California with about 25,000 employees, according to the lawsuit.
It’s the first lawsuit filed over the law, although the Civil Rights Department has reached settlements with other employers in about 70 other cases alleging violations. They include a $100,000 settlement last year on behalf of applicants who were denied jobs at a construction company.
Ralphs Grocery sued by California for allegedly revoking job offers from ex-convicts
Samantha Delouya, CNN
Thu, December 21, 2023
The state of California has sued Ralphs Grocery for allegedly rescinding job offers from hundreds of job applicants with a criminal history, accusing the company of violating state law.
California’s Civil Rights Department alleges that Ralphs violated a 2018 law that bans most employers from asking job candidates about their criminal histories before making them an offer.
The department accuses Ralphs of canceling hundreds of offers due to applicants’ prior convictions, including for a single misdemeanor count like excessive noise or cannabis possession, according to the lawsuit filed in state court Thursday. The suit is the first of its kind in California, according to the department.
Neither Ralphs nor its parent company Kroger immediately responded to CNN’s request for comment.
“We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment,” CRD director Kevin Kish said in a statement, “particularly when the job has nothing to do with a past offense.”
California’s Fair Chance law states employers must first extend a conditional job offer before making a criminal background check—and the offer can be revoked only if the conviction has a direct relationship to the job responsibilities.
The lawsuit alleges that Ralphs not only disqualified candidates based on unrelated convictions, but that the company also failed to provide adequate notice as required by the law. “Applicants would not know they were in danger of losing a job they had been offered, or in some cases, a job they had already started,” the lawsuit said.
The state did not specify financial details, but it is seeking compensatory damages for affected applicants, punitive damages and an injunction.
The suit comes after California attempted several mediation sessions with Ralphs after the state received an initial complaint alleging discriminatory practices in 2020, which sparked an investigation that Ralphs was made aware of in 2021.
Ralphs illegally denied jobs to formerly incarcerated people, civil rights lawsuit alleges
Suhauna Hussain
Thu, December 21, 2023
The Ralphs store on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. The chain is accused of illegally denying employment to formerly incarcerated applicants in violation of the state's Fair Chance Act. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Grocery company Ralphs illegally denied jobs to hundreds of people based on their criminal history, California’s Civil Rights Department alleges in a new lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is the first of its kind under California's Fair Chance Act, which went into effect in 2018 and limits the use of conviction history in hiring decisions in an effort to reduce barriers and combat discrimination that formerly incarcerated people face when looking for work.
Ralphs included questions about applicants’ conviction histories on its job application in violation of the law and failed to individually assess whether each applicant's conviction history justified denying them a job under standards set by the Fair Chance Act, the complaint alleges.
As a result, Ralphs “refused to hire hundreds of applicants whose conviction histories do not justify denying them positions,” according to the lawsuit. These violations are ongoing, according to the complaint.
The Civil Rights Department is seeking monetary damages for the workers who were denied jobs or lost jobs as a result of Ralphs’ screening practices and a court order to require Ralphs to come into compliance with the law.
“When roughly 70 million Americans have some sort of record, policies like those employed by Ralphs aren’t just discriminatory and against California law, they don’t make sense,” said Kevin Kish, director of the Civil Rights Department, according to a Thursday news release about the lawsuit. “We can’t expect people to magically gain the economic and housing stability needed to reintegrate into their communities and stay out of the criminal legal system without a fair chance at steady employment.”
Salvador Ramirez, a spokesperson for Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Fair Chance Act prohibits employers with five or more employees from asking about a job applicant’s criminal history before making a conditional job offer, and sets in place specific procedures for considering an applicant’s criminal history after a job offer is made. Under the law, employers can decide against hiring an applicant only because of a conviction that has a direct relationship with job responsibilities.
The law also requires that companies provide notice of decisions to deny applicants positions on the basis of their conviction histories, and gives applicants the ability to respond to these preliminary decisions.
Ralph did not do this, according to the Civil Rights Department. More than 75% of job applicants who were told their job offer would be withdrawn were not provided any way to contact Ralphs to contest the decision, as legally required by the Fair Chance Act, the department said.
“Ralphs has continued to unlawfully deny jobs to qualified candidates and that’s why we’re taking them to court,” Kish said in his Thursday statement.
The Civil Rights Department said that since the law went into effect in 2018, it has investigated hundreds of complaints alleging discrimination in employment decisions based on criminal history information and secured roughly 70 settlements on behalf of affected individuals. Settlements include a nearly $100,000 mediated settlement with the Moraga-Orinda Fire Protection District earlier this year as well as a $100,000 settlement last year with a construction company that allegedly unlawfully denied a group of applicants positions between 2018 and 2019.
The department said it also has made efforts to identify and correct online job advertisements that violate the Fair Chance Act, sending notices to businesses to address hundreds of violations.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment