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09/02/04
Wal-Mart Implements Pre Employment Screening After Lawsuit is Filed
With more than 1.2 million workers at about 3,500 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores nationwide, Wal-Mart is the nations largest employer and number 1 retail outlet. Recently, Wal-Mart announced that the company will start requiring employee background checks for all new hires nationwide. This decision follows two S.C. cases in which an employee was accused of sexually assaulting a child in a store. A 10-year-old girl reported she was molested in 2000 in the Forest Drive supercenter in Columbia; in the other incident, a 12-year-old girl told police she was fondled July 3 in the Orangeburg supercenter. The accused Wal-Mart employees in his two cases were registered sex offenders in South Carolina. The family of the girl in the 2000 incident has sued Wal-Mart in Richland County. Whitcomb said Thursday the company is facing a similar suit filed about two weeks ago in New Hampshire. Wal-Mart formally made the announcement on the same day a Columbia judge ordered the company to release its South Carolina employee records for the last five years for comparison with the state's sex offender registry. A Wal-Mart spokesman assured that the company's new policy on pre-employment screening had nothing to do with the order, or the two S.C. cases that were reported in July. Wal-Mart claims that the move was simply a product of background check pilot projects already in place. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, said Thursday he hopes Wal-Mart's new policy will "Set a new standard for retail America." Lynne Taylor, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse South Carolina, called Wal-Mart's new policy a "Great victory for children" and a "Responsible move." But she said the change in employee screening policies was done only in response to "So much bad press." Daniel Butler, vice president of retail operations for the National Retail Federation, a trade organization, said Wal-Mart's new policy might cause other major retailers to "take a new look" at their pre employment screening practices.

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