Child-care and health-care employers would check applicants’ work history

Covered employers would obtain service letters before hiring applicants who have worked before. This applies to employers that operate or provide care in licensed child-care facilities or health-care facilities, when the applicant would have direct contact with people receiving care. The employer must obtain a letter from the applicant’s current or most recent employer. If the applicant worked for a child-serving entity within the past 5 years, the employer must obtain letters from all of those employers. A child-serving entity includes listed child-welfare, residential-care, school, camp, and similar organizations. The check applies during hiring; the text does not state an effective date.

Employers would require two nonrelative adult references from applicants who have never worked or were self-employed, and temporary agencies would follow these rules. The reference rule covers applicants for jobs with direct access to people receiving care and people applying to operate a child-care facility; the agency rule covers temporary workers supplied to those facilities. Each reference must come from an adult familiar with the applicant. References may not come from the applicant’s relatives. A temporary agency supplying covered workers is treated as the employer for these requirements. These requirements apply when a covered applicant is considered for employment or a child-care license; the text does not state an effective date.

A failure by a former employer to answer a service-letter request would have to be documented and reported to the Department of Labor. The rule applies when a covered prospective employer tries to obtain a service letter from a previous employer. The text requires documentation before reporting the failure. The operative provision does not clearly identify who must submit the report; the synopsis says the prospective employee reports it. The duty is triggered after a previous employer fails to respond to a service-letter request; the text does not state an effective date.