Premium Joomla Template by HostMonster Reviews

New FELS Sample Employment Application Available

FELS has made a new sample English and Spanish employment application available to FELS Newsletter subscribers who have created FELS website access credentials.

Please log-in to access this FELS website resource. After logging in to the left, you can download the new forms by clicking on the links that appear below:

This new sample employment application is revised to comply with recent interpretations by the National Labor Relations Board indicating that broad assertions by an employer that employment is at will may infringe on employees' rights to engage in protected concerted activities under the National Labor Relations Act. And while it hasn’t yet done so, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board could take a similar stance under California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act. Under the NLRA's interpretation, protected concerted activity generally "requires two or more employees acting together to improve wages or working conditions, but the action of a single employee may be considered concerted if he or she involves co-workers before acting, or acts on behalf of others."

In light of recent expansion of "ban the box" prohibitions by the California Legislature and California cities such as San Francisco, some FELS Newsletter subscribers have wondered if it is permissible for employers to ask job applicants about prior criminal convictions, as our sample employment application does.

California Labor Code section 432.7 prohibits all employers from asking applicants about any arrest or detention that did not result in a conviction. California public agencies were prohibited by AB 218, passed in 2013, from inquiring about any conviction until first determining that the applicant meets the minimum requirements for the job in question.

FELS' sample employment application asks an applicant to disclose whether the applicant has been convicted of a felony or, within the last three years, a misdemeanor that resulted in imprisonment. This inquiry is not prohibited by California law and has been retained in the new sample employment application.