BILL ANALYSIS 1
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SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DEBRA BOWEN, CHAIRWOMAN
AB 1934 - Corbett Hearing
Date: June 11, 2002 A
As Amended: May 8, 2002
NON-FISCAL B
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DESCRIPTION
This bill requires telephone corporations to perform
background checks on applicants for employment if that
applicant would have access to the telephone network or the
customer premises, and the applicant would perform
activities involving installation, service, or repair of
the telephone network.
This bill requires telephone corporation contractors and
vendors to perform background checks if their employees
would have access to the telephone network or the customer
premises, and the employee would perform activities
involving installation, service, or repair of the telephone
network.
This bill wouldn't require background checks to be
conducted for temporary workers performing emergency
functions resulting from a natural disaster or an emergency
threatening loss of service.
BACKGROUND
While current law requires a number of public agencies
(such as schools) and private employers (such as in-home
health care workers) to perform background checks on
potential employees, it doesn't require telephone
corporations to perform background checks on its potential
employees.
This bill applies to virtually every company offering
telephone service, including long-distance carriers (e.g.
AT&T), wireless carriers (e.g. Cingular), and new
competitors (e.g. PacWest Communications).
COMMENTS
1.What Kind of Background Check? The bill requires the
telephone companies to perform background checks
according to "current business practices." This allows
each company to determine for itself what type of
background check is most appropriate to conduct on its
potential employees and contractors. While such
flexibility may be beneficial, it's unclear what benefit
is achieved by statutorily requiring companies to do a
background check that they design for themselves. If the
goal of this bill is to require telephone companies to do
the same type of background check on people hired under a
personal services contract, independent contractors and
their employees, and vendors and their employees that the
company does on its own employees, the author and
committee may wish to consider adopting language to
clarify that point.
2.What Happens After The Background Check? The bill is
silent on what happens once a background check is
performed. If the background check reveals a potential
employee has a prior felony conviction, is the contractor
barred from hiring that person? Can the person be hired,
as long as the telephone company (in the case where a
sub-contracting company is doing the hiring) is notified
of the conviction? Must the result of the background
check be shared with the telephone company? Must it be
shared with the person or business that is having work
done by the telephone company? Must it be shared with
the person's co-workers? The author and committee may
wish to consider what type of disclosure, if any, is
appropriate.
3.Right to Privacy vs. Public Safety . Background checks
are designed to protect the public from people who may
cause harm to them. At the same time, a person who may
have been convicted of a crime at some point in their
past may not want to have that conviction preclude them
from gaining employment, or may not want to have that
conviction disclosed to employers, customers, and/or
coworkers. This measure, as noted above, is unclear in
terms of what information a background check is designed
to reveal and who that information will be revealed to.
Will, for example, this bill require a person's drunk
driving conviction from 15 years earlier to be revealed
to his or her potential employer/co-workers/customers?
The author and committee may wish to consider whether
requiring telephone companies to craft and conduct their
own background checks on potential employees and
contractors will deter otherwise qualified people from
seeking employment and whether the "benefit" of the
background check outweighs the potential "cost."
4.Penalties/Enforcement . The California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC) is responsible for enforcing the Public
Utilities Code. However, penalties for violation of this
portion of the code are not specified in existing law,
nor does this bill create any penalties for violation of
its provisions. The author and committee may wish to
consider whether there should be a penalty imposed on a
company that fails to conduct a background check on a
potential employee pursuant to this bill.
5.Retroactive or Prospective? It's not clear whether this
bill requires companies to perform the background checks
envisioned by this bill on all of its existing employees
or only on employees hired after the date this measure
becomes effective. The author and committee may wish to
consider clarifying this issue.
6.Double Referral . If approved, the Senate Rules Committee
has requested that this be referred to the Senate Public
Safety Committee.
ASSEMBLY VOTES
Assembly Floor (74-0)
Assembly Labor and Employment Committee(7-0)
Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee(14-1)
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
Communication Workers of America
Support:
California Public Utilities Commission
Oppose:
None on file
Randy Chinn
AB 1934 Analysis
Hearing Date: June 11, 2002