Must H.R. Notify My Boss of a Criminal Charge, Not a Conviction

[TomCat]

My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: Illinois

Started a new position recently and a background check was conducted after employment began. Upon receipt of the results, charges, NOT convicted of anything, came back on the report. Anything that was on there HAS been expunged. My attorney has sent a letter to the Director of HR informing them of this and that he's investigating why it returned with anything on my record. HR also asked if they could call my attorney and my attorney spoke to them, smoothing out what everything means and that it should not be there.

The HR Director does not want to have to inform anyone else, i.e my boss, about this but wants to make sure they are not obligated by law to inform my boss. The accusations, "charges", are non-violent and do not directly relate to my position, financial/accounting industry. The application asked if I had ever been CONVICTED of a crime, not charged.

My question is, where can I find information to present to them stating they are not obligated by law to inform my boss? And that this can be kept between us. As I was asked to please present this to ease their conscious and not jeopardize her job. Thank you in advance for you assistance.

PLEASE, help! So I can show evidence that no further action need be taken to my boss.

[LawResearcherMissy]

My question is, where can I find information to present to them stating they are not obligated by law to inform my boss?

The law does not address whether or not your HR person must notify your boss of items on a background check.

However, by law, if your record has been expunged, you are permitted to answer NO to the questions of charges and/or convictions. As far as the law is concerned, you were never charged:

Illinois law prohibits using expunged, sealed or impounded arrest or criminal-history records as a basis for denying employment, promotion or other privileges or conditions of employment.

Illinois law also requires employment applications to include specific language stating that applicants are not obligated to disclose sealed or expunged arrest or conviction records. If an employer does ask about expunged information, it can be found liable for a civil rights violation under the Illinois Human Rights Act. It might have to pay damages to the job applicant.

http://www.businessmanagementdaily.c...nois-employers

Quoting 03. Arrest Record.

(A) Unless otherwise authorized by law, it is a civil rights violation for any employer, employment agency or labor organization to inquire into or to use the fact of an arrest or criminal history record information ordered expunged, sealed or impounded under Section 5 of the Criminal Identification Act as a basis to refuse to hire, to segregate, or to act with respect to recruitment, hiring, promotion, renewal of employment, selection for training or apprenticeship, discharge, discipline, tenure or terms, privileges or conditions of employment. This Section does not prohibit a State agency, unit of local government or school district, or private organization from requesting or utilizing sealed felony conviction information obtained from the Department of State Police under the provisions of Section 3 of the Criminal Identification Act or under other State or federal laws or regulations that require criminal background checks in evaluating the qualifications and character of an employee or a prospective employee.

(B) The prohibition against the use of the fact of an arrest contained in this Section shall not be construed to prohibit an employer, employment agency, or labor organization from obtaining or using other information which indicates that a person actually engaged in the conduct for which he or she was arrested.

[Beth3]

My question is, where can I find information to present to them stating they are not obligated by law to inform my boss?

You can't. The law doesn't state what individuals are allowed to do; laws codify what is prohibited. Absent a law stating HR may not inform a manager about an employee's criminal history (which does not exist), they may tell anyone they wish to.

[ESteele]

Follow Missy’s advice. You may want to forward a copy of the above-cited Illinois expungement statute to HR. As a matter of state law, neither your boss nor anyone else in management should take any adverse employment action against based on the expunged charges. Accordingly, while the law does not dictate that HR keep this information confidential, it does preclude the company from discriminating against you because of the expunged charges.

[eerelations]

An HR Director that thinks there might be a law requiring HR people to reveal criminal history to management staff?

[LawResearcherMissy]

An HR Director that thinks there might be a law requiring HR people to reveal criminal history to management staff?

You're surprised? My puppy, who is a lunkhead and a little slow on the uptake, is smarter than some HR peeps I've known. There are last in the class grads in every profession!

[cbg]

Unfortunately, since a lot of companies don't have any inkling of the value of HR, the HR person is frequently the office manager or the boss's EA, who knows as much about HR going in as the office cat. Those of us who actually have training in the field know what we're doing; it sometimes scares me how much the HR person in some companies doesn't know.