Employment Document Falsification

System

In brief:
We received notice from SSA that a handful of our employees were provided W2's to a SS account number that had never been issued. The letter asked for our help in resolving the problem but also indicated that we should take no adverse action based solely on their letter.

Prior to discussing the issue with the employees, we reviewed our personnel files and I-9 logs. Our records showed that we had not made in clerical errors in our records. Copies of the SS card were included with the Form I-9. We also noted that each of the employees had used the suspect SS# in the completion of their signed employment application. We were unable to find any logical explanation for the variance reported by the SSA. Falsification seemed very likely.

We spoke with each of the employees identified by the SSA and asked them to help us understand how these matters could be explained.
They offered no explanation. We allowed them to take 3 days to present us with documentation that would help us understand what was going on. They went to their Union. The Union argued that we had no right to make any demands upon the employee and that we were engaging in illegal discrimination by not simply allowing the suspect employees "up to 6 months" to resolve the issue with the SSA directly. We didn't agree with their analysis.

In our final offer to the Union, we allowed the employees to have an additional 10 days of administrative leave to resolve their "records" problem, followed by an additional 4 week window after termination to present us with documentation that showed us that they did not falsify our application, the form I-9, and verify their SS account number was valid.

We are now headed for arbitration. The union contends that what we did was analogous to taking action based upon a invalid search warrant. Since SSA had improperly asked the employer to help resolve the SS# problem, what we learned was effectively 'inadmissible evidence' for the purpose of establishing just cause for discharge.

While all this seems implausible, the Union does have arbitration case history where people who were not authorized to work in the US were reinstated with back pay (a Travel Lodge case from California)...

Under these circumstances, we believe we had no option short of discharge. We beleive that what we learned in the investigation prompted by the SSA, placed us "on notice" that our employees were not authorized to work in the US. We were told by INS that we did the right thing.
In spite of all that, the "teamsters for a democratic union" are aggressively seeking reinstatement for each of these people (even the one that said "I bought the SS card in Fresno").

Anybody else ever have a similar problem?

WD

I haven't dealt with this situation, however, one of our other locations was found to have employees that did not have legitimate social security numbers. We were promptly put on alert from our Corporate Office who told us that all current employees had to be verified through the Social Security Verification Office. Our location had 2 employees who did not "match" with their SS#'s. We informed the employees and the siutations were quickly resolved because they were due to incorrect dates of birth listed with the SS Office. Perhaps to prevent future problems, you could adopt a policy similar to ours whereby as soon as an employee is hired, the SS Verification Office is contacted (they will not let you verify for "potential" employees because of the Privacy Act). Their phone # is 800-772-6270, you will need to provide your Tax ID#, date of birth and SS#. They will quickly tell you whether or the name "matches" the SS# on file and will verify up to 5 names.

Tricia

We had this problem at a company where I worked. We called the Social Security Admin to verify all social security numbers. Those who were found to have invalid ss# were put on a 3 day suspension until they could bring in a valid ss#. Most of these ee's were terminated as a result of this. The union can cause as many problems as they want, but this is real simple...If you don't have a valid social security number or id card, you cannot work in the United States. It's pure and simple. Also, any employee who willingly falsifies their application should not be reinstated, because this is clearly a violation of company policy.