A small rally in support of Denton council member Brandon Chase McGee’s proposed fair-chance hiring ordinance didn’t sway City Council members to vote in its favor at a special-called council meeting Tuesday.
Instead, a last-minute pitch by Denton Chamber of Commerce President Erin Carter swayed McGee to make a motion to delay council’s vote for four months. Carter proposed that the chamber work with the city on a program to incentivize businesses to offer second-chance hiring in lieu of a fair-chance hiring ordinance.
Postponing the vote for four months, McGee said, will give the chamber time to work with the city to develop a program.
McGee, whose term ends in May, referred to his move as a compromise with the chamber, which also opposes the ordinance, according to an early December memo to council.
“Passing an ordinance that allows the City to intervene in the local businesses’ interviewing process and become an investigatory arm of the EEOC when the EEOC takes no action or has no jurisdiction is not a pro-business initiative,” Carter wrote in the Dec. 4 memo. “This initiative does not create more jobs nor higher wages. It will only hamstring our ability to attract more businesses and provide fuel for our neighbors and competitors who want to portray our City as an anti-business community.”
The council voted 5-2 to accept McGee’s motion to delay the controversial ordinance.
Proposed by McGee last summer, the fair-chance hiring ordinance, also known as the “ban the box” initiative, would recommend that private employers with 15 or more employees remove the criminal background question from applications and wait until later in the hiring process to ask it.
It would also allow people to file complaints with the city within 90 days and the city to investigate those complaints through a third-party vendor if the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Texas Workforce Commission declined to investigate due to lack of jurisdiction. The burden of proof would be on the complainant.
A violation of the ordinance would be a misdemeanor offense with a fine of up to $500.
Tuesday’s decision to postpone for four months came after the council postponed the initial vote six months ago to allow staff to seek public comment on the proposed ordinance.
The city staff presented those results to the council Tuesday.
Those results were pulled from three in-person and two virtual listening sessions and a public hearing in early December. A page on the city’s online engagement platform, Discuss Denton, was also used to solicit feedback.
Of the 29 people who participated in an online poll, 15 (51.7%) opposed the proposed ordinance, while 10 (34.5%) supported it and four (13.7%) were unsure, according to the Dec. 22 informal staff report.
Twenty-two people also offered feedback on Discuss Denton. A majority opposed the local legislation for several reasons, including their dislike of the city dictating their employment decisions. As one commenter wrote, “He governs best who governs least.”
Those who supported it seemed to echo the signs that rally attendees held Tuesday afternoon in front of City Hall: “Ban the Box,” “Qualifications Not Convictions” and “Worker Rights Are Human Rights,” for example.
The rally was hosted by several groups including labor activism group Denton Worker, Abundance Denton, which pushes for access to housing and public transit, Decriminalize Denton, Denton Bail Fund and others. In a prepared statement read at the rally, Denton Worker encouraged the council to pass the ordinance “because the policy should lessen the discrimination that workers experience as a result of structural racism.
“If the ordinance is adopted, Black and Latinx workers who have been in the criminal justice system will have the same opportunity as any other job candidate to showcase their abilities and potential for prospective employers. This should lessen the effect of the stigma of a criminal history on the hiring decisions, and thereby improve chances of gaining employment.”
At their Dec. 5 meeting, council members directed the city staff to research effectiveness of fair-chance hiring ordinances at increasing employment outcomes for persons with criminal records.
More than 70 million Americans — 1 in 3 adults — have criminal records, and an estimated 60% of those leaving prison are unemployed a year later, according to a July report by The New York Times.
In the city’s informal staff report Dec. 22, staff also included several studies on fair-chance efforts that suggested they lack effectiveness and, in some cases, can have unintended consequences, such as discrimination by employers who avoid interviewing minority applicants they believe could have criminal records.
“While not exhaustive, the data staff found indicate that there is not a research consensus on the effectiveness of fair chance hiring initiatives,” Chief of Staff Ryan Adams wrote in the report.
City staff also contacted the city of DeSoto and Austin, the first Texas city to pass a “ban the box” initiative in 2016, regarding the outcomes from their fair-chance hiring ordinances.
Though DeSoto staff didn’t provide a response, staff from Austin met with Denton staff to provide details. Those details weren’t included in the Dec. 22 informal report.
Instead, Adams wrote, “Austin staff acknowledged that it did not have any formal data that would show the impact of their Fair Chance Hiring on the overall employment outcomes of persons with criminal records.”
The Record-Chronicle contacted Austin city staff to discuss the overall success of the city’s fair-chance hiring ordinance. According to Austin staff, the ordinance has had a positive impact on the city.
To implement the ordinance, Austin conducted an education outreach campaign to educate employers and business owners. For example, city staff said Austin’s ordinance does not:
- Prohibit background checks.
- Change an employer’s hiring standards.
- Create a protected class.
- Require an employer to implement background checks.
- Require employers to hire formerly incarcerated persons.
The staff of Tamela Saldana, Austin’s acting civil rights director, said the fair-chance hiring ordinance has helped job seekers with criminal backgrounds.
“The city of Austin’s FHCO aims to decrease recidivism and unemployment and increase reintegration for qualified job applicants with criminal histories,” Saldana’s office wrote in an email to the Record-Chronicle.