Law's Good Intentions Put Members' Jobs at Risk

Everyone wants to protect children from harm. But does that mean keeping away any adult who wrote bad checks 20 years ago, got caught with a joint in high school or hunted wild hogs out of season in 1971?

Those are some of the charges that have popped up on background checks for CWA members at AT&T (until recently BellSouth) in Florida, requiring locals to take on school districts, the state legislature and the company to protect workers' jobs.

The extensive background checks are part of a 2005 law passed after 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford was killed by a convicted child molester who worked on a building project at her school. Employees whose companies contract with school districts must pass the checks in order to work on school grounds.

CWA Local 3122 President Don Abicht said no one's arguing with the goal of the law, which is to protect children from sex offenders. But when 80 of 1,000 technicians in his Miami local failed the initial background check — none of the reasons having anything to do with hurting children — Abicht knew the law needed fixing.

Dade County, home to Miami, was one of four counties in the state that decided to play hard ball with the Lunsford Act, which specifically bars people from schools if they've been convicted of a crime of "moral turpitude." But it doesn't spell out what that means. "Some school districts followed the spirit of the law, and only eliminated people whose records had something to do with children," Abicht said. "Dade County started eliminating everybody."

CWA Representative Don LaRotonda, the union's legislative coordinator in Florida, said Locals 3108 in Orlando, 3109 in Pensacola and 3111 in Fort Pierce also had trouble.

The record checks are so deep that they include sealed juvenile files and FBI records. "Every kind of juvenile misconduct you can think of, things you thought were expunged, it all turned up," LaRontonda said. "Everything from urinating on the side of the road to making out in the backseat with a girlfriend to teen-age pot smoking."

Abicht and Local 3108 President Sherri Keller said clearing their members and battling the system that created the problem has taken hundreds of hours so far, since the school districts notified AT&T in late January that many workers had failed background checks.

"We had one guy who, before he was going to Vietnam 42 years ago, drank a beer and got busted for drinking as a minor," said Keller, whose local also had the "hog larceny" case. "This has been a nightmare. All of us support protecting children — we read these stories and they're terrible, they're sickening. But we don't want to hurt people who aren't in that category. These are people who made minor mistakes and paid their dues."

The locals and District 3 have taken a multi-pronged approach: Testifying before school boards, meeting with legislators and getting some concessions from the company. While other contractors and vendors who work in the schools generally decided they would reassign employees who failed background checks, AT&T workers have been at risk of losing their jobs.

Pushed by CWA, the company has since agreed to other options that include reassignment, and LaRotonda said some workers have gone to other parts of Florida or to the Gulf Coast area to continue post-Katrina work. But other workers have used up vacation time trying to clear themselves and are on leave without pay. Keller said she's had 28 members lose pay and those who've been off the payroll for more than 30 days have had their pensions affected.

As part of their strategy, locals have pressed school boards to ease up. Abicht's Miami local got the board to review the 80 original cases, clearing all but 27. A new round of checks is underway. Of those checked so far, seven people haven't been cleared and are at risk of being fired for misconduct. Keller has about eight members left. Both locals are filing dozens of grievances against AT&T.

The state Senate has introduced a bill that would fix the law by specifying the specific crimes that would bar someone from school grounds. But a companion bill hasn't been introduced yet in the House, and LaRotonda said it's possible that won't happen in this session.

CWA's fight has drawn ample media attention, including an interview with Abicht on the national Ed Schultz radio show. He and Keller point out that the very people being targeted are parents themselves who spend many non-work hours in the schools.

One of his members, who was arrested in a bar fight about five years ago, testified with his child in hand at a school board meeting in February. "He told them, 'Listen, I don't understand,'" Abicht said. "'I put on my BellSouth uniform and I'm a criminal. At night, I come in my regular clothes and I'm a volunteer and active member of the PTA.'"