BACKGROUND CHECKS DISALLOWED? WHEN RESIDENTS ARE AT RISK

The agent suggests to the board that since no background checks had been done, it might be prudent to do them now. But the board grows reluctant, especially when it learns that to gather certain material, like a credit check, an employee's permission is needed. The board doesn't want to create bad feelings, or give the impression it doesn't trust the staff. And anyway, it's a union building, and background checks on existing staff aren't allowed.

Did one of the porters have a criminal record? Probably not. But maybe. And that well-liked, grandfatherly super? He probably wasn't a sex offender back in Ohio, and probably has no history of walking away from maxed-out credit cards, and probably isn't licensed to carry a gun, or….

That's just it, you see? That board  — and that building's families and kids  — will never know. Until, perhaps, it's too late.

Background checks "should be a common thing," believes veteran real estate attorney Arthur I. Weinstein, a founder and the vice president of the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums, whose most recent project was devising a suggested code of ethics for board members. "Each co-op and condo employee is in a position of absolute trust in regard to residents. They have access to apartments, to packages, they're in frequent contact with young children." Echoes Josh Salon, vice president of Salon Realty: "It would be crazy for any management company not to do it. You run background checks on prospective tenants, so not to run one for an employee is just insane. It costs $15 – next to nothing. For a professional manager not to do it is the equivalent of malpractice."

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 32BJ, which represents more than 85,000 doormen, porters, security guards, superintendents, and other such workers in the tri-state area plus Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., allows security background checks at any time for employees of unionized commercial buildings. For residential buildings, however, such checks are only allowed "on change of ownership or conversion of the status of a building or employee," according to the 2006-2010 contact between the local and the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB). So, basically, an office desk or chair gets a higher level of security than your kid does.

For buildings, a change in status generally means new ownership or conversion from rental to co-op or condo. For employees, change in status means "promotion from handyman or porter to super," says 32BJ spokesperson Matthew Nerzig. Lateral moves such as reassignment from one building in a complex to another don't count. RAB president James Berg takes the view that employee change-of-status "could mean in certain circumstances changing to a more sensitive job, such as moving from back staff to front staff, or taking on more responsibility."

Does hiring a new management company constitute a change in a building's status? Not according to the union, and the RAB isn't sure. "Most of the time," says Berg, "the union is cooperative in working these things out." Also keep in mind, he adds, that, "Sometimes when you say a check hasn't been done, it has been done. Boards change, paperwork and files get moved around, there's a lot of that."

Whatever one's read on the phrase "conversion of status," the contract is clear on other things: employers can't conduct background checks on a disciplinary or retaliatory basis. Any disciplinary action afterward has to be for just cause. And the employer has to pick up the cost of background checks. (Security guards have a separate agreement. They're not subject to checks any time if they work directly for a co-op or condo but are if they're employees of a commercial security company and subcontracted to patrol your building or complex.)

The term "background security check" itself is vague, or perhaps flexible. It used to be that you just called the former employer about a prospective hire or asked around in the industry. But in recent times, notes Weinstein, "a lot of previous employers are reluctant to give out comments" for fear of litigation. "Their concern is that they don't want to be sued for slander or anything like that."