I was recently employed by West Telemarketing Corporation D/B/A Dakotah direct. I applied on or about february 20th when I applied I was asked if I had ever been "convicted" of 1) a felony, 2) any misdemeanor, or 3) a crime of breach of trust or fraud. My resposes to these questions was "NO". I went on to be hired in Coeur d'Alene and began my employment on March 10th.
About 2 weeks into my employment I transferred to the Spokane, Washington "sinto" site where I began training for a new project. All went well for about the next five months. I was utilized as a floor resource for some time and then given the position of "subject matter expert".
Finally at the end of august I was offered the position of team leader on the project in which I was currently working on. I was advised that another background investigation would be completed. I arrived at work on Friday September 5th at about 11am to begin preperation of my team for the shift, shortly after my arrival one of my operations managers advised me that Darrell Breeden (HR Manager) wanted to speak with me. I proceeded to his office where Darrell and Stacie Furhiman (HR Recruiter) were sitting.
Darrell began talking to me stating that an issue had come up, he presented me with my original application pointing out that I answered no to the three conviction related questions. He then showed me a copy of the background check which showed my juvenile "adjudications". He then presented to me a PIN IV (involuntary termination) for misleading dakotah on my application and sent me on my way. I then proceeded to appeal the termination with Carolee Young (Employee Relations) I advised her that the info on the check was all juvenile. She advised that she would be initiating an "investigation".
I began to do my own research on the issue. I found many references to help my case. Idaho code states that juveniles are adjudicated for acts which would be crimes if commited by an adult. I also found legal sites that stated that adjudications are not convictions and that I could truthfully answer no to that question on the application. I was reasonably sure that with this information I would have my position back at the end of the investigation. I also consulted with two attorneys on this matter their take was that since the question stated simply "conviction" that there was room for interpertation and that if I had been adjudicated and answered "NO" to their question I was telling the truth based on the verbiage of the question.
I finally got word on september 16th that the company was going to uphold the termination with no reason provided upon my verbal request. The questions they ask on the application are obsolete, vague, and High risk. Most employers including the state of Idaho itself include a sentence to the effect of "you may omit; Juvenile offenses finally adjudicated in a juvenile court and Minor traffic violations". Their reasoning behind the upholding of that termination is in my opinion unjustified and discriminitory.
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