Monday, October 29, 2007

Sean Pelzer has definitely had his share of problems with CORI. Back in 1994, when he was a state employee, management questioned his alleged criminal history. Sean was shocked because he knew he had not committed any crimes, and therefore could not have a CORI. Nonetheless, he was laid off. Then in 1997, after working at UHaul for only 3 months, he was fired after his employer ran a CORI check. In 2001, after working for 6 months at Massachusetts General Hospital, Sean began speaking out to management about abusive and unsafe working conditions. In retaliation, he was fired after they decided to run a CORI check.

The following month, Sean was discharged and demoted by the Army because of his CORI, even after serving fourteen years with them. Finally, Sean was able to get a copy of his CORI and discovered all of the mistakes and inaccuracies, but was told he needed an attorney to clear his record. Since then, he has become active with the Union of Minority Neighborhood as an organizer to change the extremely flawed CORI law and to make sure no one else has to go through what he did.