The recent demands by Member Companies of the National Association of Mortgage Field Services (NAMFS) for background checks upon Contractors could actually land all of them not only in the middle of class action lawsuits, but squarely in the cross hairs of the
Obama Administration's Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC). We actually broke this story earlier this year and had reached out to most of the National Order Mills and Prime Vendors. We never heard anything back.
Scott Thurm, of the Wall Street Journal Online, reports as follows,
Federal regulators Tuesday accused two large employers of improperly using criminal-background checks in hiring, the latest salvo in a contentious debate over whether such screening amounts to discrimination against black applicants.
In complaints filed in federal courts in Illinois and South Carolina, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said two companies discount retailer Dollar General Corp. and a U.S. unit of German auto maker BMW generally barred potential employees based on the criminal checks, when they should have reviewed each applicant. The commission said the policies had the effect of discriminating against black applicants.
So, while NAMFS and its Member Companies may refuse to release information to the Contractors applying for work and the General Public, we believe that they are going to have a far more difficult time ignoring the Obama Administration. We have additionally reached out to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) based primarily upon the fact that many within this Industry have refused to pay African American Women in the Southeast working upon US Veterans Affairs (VA) Contracts.
For an Industry comprised almost exclusively of Caucasian Executives it is extremely difficult for me not to be concerned with respect to the nefarious stigma of discrimination raising its ugly head. In an Industry which has absolutely no regulation; no Congressional Oversight; and daily creates arbitrary and capricious rules targeted at poverty level Contractors, it is really NOT too far off base to believe that discrimination may play a KEY role in utilizing background checks as an avenue to deprive honorable minorities for trivial incidents earlier in their youth.
Neither the NAMFS nor the Property Preservation Industry has been ...
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