Potential Syracuse city employees lost a shot at omitting their criminal history in job applications last week when Ban the Box legislation was removed for consideration in city council.

 

The legislation would have made it illegal for city employers to ask a job applicant whether he or she has been convicted of a crime, according to a Sept. 10 syracuse.com article. The bill was also designed to further prevent job discrimination against ex-convicts, which is already illegal in New York state, the article said.

Ban the Box would do what the title of the law suggests: eliminate the criminal history box on employment applications.

“One out of four adults in the U.S. have a criminal record.  That is a lot of people to be discriminated against if they check the box on an application, and of those it is disproportionately people of color,” said Alan Rosenthal, a lawyer from the Center for Community Alternatives, in an email.

Rosenthal said he believes Ban the Box is a way to provide economic opportunities for those who desperately need jobs to support themselves and their families.

CenterState, a local business group, commissioned a study by the Brookings Institution about eight months ago that discovered the average wage in Syracuse is almost 20 percent lower than the national average. The study also states that Syracuse is among the most economically segregated regions in the country.

“The Brookings Institution report tells us what the problem is: access to economic opportunity remains a persistent challenge,” Rosenthal said. “Ban the Box is a citizen-driven solution to open up economic opportunity.”

Councilor Khalid Bey revoked the bill because community activists for the bill were not willing to make a compromise with Mayor Stephanie Miner’s office on an amendment that would have made the bill pointless, according to the Syracuse.com article.

Rosenthal said a flyer was distributed to Ban the Box supporters explaining how the bill was hijacked by a “poison pill” amendment at the last moment.

The amendment states the bill will not apply to “any positions that may have direct or indirect interaction, involvement or contact with youth under 18 years of age, senior citizens or the physically or mentally disabled.”

According to a letter by the Ban the Box Steering Committee within the Center for Community Alternatives to supporters, the committee thinks the amendment would make the legislation inapplicable to every position for which the city hires, therefore allowing every contractor and the city manager to claim that the bill doesn’t apply to them.

“Passage of this ordinance with this ‘poison pill’ exception will not merely accomplish nothing, but it will also do real harm,” the committee’s letter stated. “It creates the illusion that something is being done to help when it is not, thereby promoting cynicism and frustration with Syracuse city government.”

Patricia Warth, co-director of justice strategies at the Center for Community Alternatives and a member of the committee, has mixed feelings about the bill being pulled. She said supporters of the bill definitely did not want the “poison pill” version of the bill to be passed.

“The poison pill would have made Ban the Box a mockery,” Warth said. “The Committee is glad Councilor Bey didn’t go forward with the amendment, but we’re disappointed he pulled the bill all together rather than passing it without the poison pill.”

The Steering Committee had a meeting Monday night to discuss a plan for pushing the bill forward. At the meeting, Warth said they encouraged people to continue to support the legislation and oppose the amendment.

Warth added that several people have called the office since the bill was pulled last week.

“We’ve realized there’s a lot of support out there for Ban the Box, and we’re going to turn this disappointment into positive energy and work forward,” she said.

Published on September 17, 2014 at 12:01 am