The San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is ready to “ban the box,” the widely used criminal history check box on employment applications. This would make San Francisco the ninth jurisdiction to enact the legislation. In addition, the new San Francisco legislation imposes a host of additional new restrictions on the use of criminal history for employment purposes. These restrictions supplement those already imposed by the federal FCRA and arguably make San Francisco the toughest jurisdiction in the U.S. for employers to use criminal history. To comply, San Francisco employers with more than 20 employees should take the following steps: Review their employment application to remove questions about criminal history; Revise their hiring procedures to delay inquiry about criminal history until after the first live interview; Develop a criminal history questionnaire; Establish a procedure for documenting evidence of rehabilitation and mitigating factors received from applicants and for considering that information before making an adverse employment decision; Establish a minimum seven-day waiting period before sending a final adverse action notice; Revise job advertisements to include required language; Post the required poster after the OLSE publishes it; and Retain all documents demonstrating compliance with the Ordinance for at least three years.
