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Critics call for more background checks for job seekers
Allegations that dozens of McDonald's restaurants in at least 14 states have employed registered sex offenders, including some previously convicted of at-restaurant offenses against minors, have brought to light widespread gaps in hiring practices and caught the attention of Congress.
And Nation's Restaurant News' inquiries into the prevalence of foodservice job seekers who have criminal records for sex crimes or other offenses revealed an unexpectedly high rate that exceeds those for other industries, at least according to a background-check firm that works for one large Burger King franchisee.
But criminal-record checks that might detect a job applicant's record as a sexual predator appear to be the exception, not the rule, in a cost-averse industry that nonetheless caters to children and depends on young workers.
The issue of background checks that are not performed and of sex crime convictions that are ignored by major restaurant chains - arose this month with a multipart series of evening-news reports by the Nashville, Tenn., CBS affiliate, WTVF. Its broadcasts cited multiple cases in which franchised and McDonald's Corp.-owned branches of that chain had hired persons listed on now-public state registries of sex offenders.
In one case, a convicted sex offender fired by McDonald,s Corp. was later accepted by the company into its managertraining program after he was rehired by a franchisee, WTVF alleged.
The Nashville station,s reports were cited this month by U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, RTenn., in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations during ongoing hearings into the matter of sexual exploitation of minors, including over the Internet, and difficulties in prosecuting predators.
"That we have sexual predators who are going into a place like a family-friendly restaurant, going into a place where they can be hired and get close to these children, to me that is of tremendous concern," Blackburn was quoted as telling members of the subcommittee, which reports to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Blackburn has...