More on Convictions And Hiring, Wisconsin Style

A very troubling recent decision out of the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission should give pause to any employer that does criminal background checks for its Wisconsin employees.  The case is a very clear representation of how state employment commissions are working to undercut employers’ ability to minimize risk to their work force and customer base.

In this case, the Commission was faced with a claim of discrimination by Walmart when it fired one of its forklift drivers after discovering that he had been convicted of sexual assault, first degree reckless endangerment, and false imprisonment, stemming from a domestic incident with his then girlfriend.  The employee’s girlfriend tried to breakup with him and in response, the employee threatened her with a gun and a knife, threatened to commit suicide, and forced her to have sex with him against her will.  When it discovered these facts, Walmart terminated the employee from his warehouse forklift driver position.

Under Wisconsin law, an employer cannot discriminate against an employee because of a criminal conviction unless the crimes are “substantially related” to the particular requirements of the employee's job.  Amazingly, the Commission determined that because the crimes were committed at home, and not at the workplace, and occurred in response to a dating relationship, there was little danger of a repeat occurrence on the job.  The Commission also found that Walmart’s strict oversight of its warehouse operations would likely deter any sexual assaults by the employee in the future.  The Commissions reasoning is, shall we say, sparse – it does not explain why someone who sexually assaults a person in their home is not likely to do it at work, particularly when the evidence presented showed that the employee would be left unsupervised in the warehouse for extended periods of time.

I don’t have a good response to the Commission’s very troubling decision.  Walmart presented the evidence required under the statute and older case decisions to justify its action.  The Commission simply rejected the evidence and precedents.  As a result, employers contemplating taking an adverse action based on a conviction record in Wisconsin should carefully articulate all possible connections between that conviction, and the job in question.  Perhaps if Walmart had demonstrated that the warehouse was opened to customers, or that the employee would be dealing with significant numbers of female employees, the result might have been different.