Suppose someone discovers unsafe (i.e. someone could get hurt or killed) practices at work but not technically illegal. Being a good human being they report it to their supervisor. Nothing being done and employee safety still at risk they go to the next level. Still no action and they go even higher. Naturally they get a reputation of a troublemaker and they get fired. At any point in this process, does the employee get the protection of a whistleblower and cannot be fired at will or does whistleblowing even apply to private companies or if it is all internal (i.e. the employee never went to the papers or regulatory agency)?
Assuming the employee is protected, suppose 10 employees are fired including the troublemaker. Can the company defend itself by saying “We didn’t single that employee out. They were one of ten.”
I don’t think there is a magical ‘whistleblower protection’ that appears at any point. Business will be conducted however it is going to be conducted, and if the fired employee wants to bring a lawsuit after that fact and say they were a whistleblower, the opposing lawyer and perhaps the courts will have to consider it. I suspect if there was a large layoff and the whistleblower was among them, that would significantly weaken their case.
There are a few factors to consider as well. The first would be whether the whistleblower could document that they told various levels of folks and the information was ignored. In some cases, what the worker views as ‘unsafe’ may be the standard way of doing business in the industry and well within the law. In other cases, perhaps the matter was being looked into by a third party, but the worker perceived it was being ignored, so they escalated it, and simply felt they were being ignored. And still another factor would be if the worker’s claim was legitimate, but they were otherwise terrible at their job and used their ‘protected whistleblower’ status as an excuse to slack off on the job.
I have a friend who works in Worker’s Comp. who told me the story of a guy who had reported that the workers at a large industrial plant were performing a procedure that was unsafe because it saved time rather than the way it was supposed to be done. He then did it himself and got hurt after reporting it because he was in a hurry, and that significantly reduced his payout after losing a few fingers.
If there is no law in place banning termination it is legal. OSHA has retaliation/whistleblower protections. There is nothing to actually indicate the employee has to be defacto right for a complaint to not be followed.
Whistleblower laws are in general any law that forbids termination based on something, like Title 7. You blew the whistle on the employers conduct.
If an employee is terminated for making an unsafe work complaint, they may seek advice of counsel.
That may be a fruitless defense. Facts are argued in court and the company can argue that there. I have only read 1 case in my life where the employer admitted liability, I am sure there are others though, and that is only the textual law was with them, but it backfired when it went to the Ohio Supreme Court.
An employer is not going to admit liability, they don’t even in a settlement agreement.
The obvious answer is what sort of a career do you expect to have when everyone in the company hates your guts? If the company can’t fire you, expect the boss’s pet(s) to make your life miserable while shielding the herarchy from blame. Sadly, ethical decisions rarely end well, unless the people above your immediate bosses agree with your point of view. (“I am shocked, SHocked! To hear of such goings on in my company!” Usually said with a straight face.)
If it’s “unsafe, but not technically illegal”, and the company is ignoring your report, the best pace to report it next is to the insurance company that is covering the company operations. 8anonymously, if necessary.) They are the ones who would have to pay for any worker injured by the unsafe condition, so they will be concerned.
And since they don’t have any legal penalties or fines, the company will not be so upset at their interference (probably just want to settle it before OSHA hears about it). The insurance does have influence, though – if it’s not fixed, they can raise the premium or drop the policy entirely. So companies are often much more receptive to concerns from ‘their’ insurance company than from ‘the government’.
My partner was a “whistleblower” when her company was blatantly discriminating on the basis of race and age. She was in the right. She had tons and tons of documentation. The local and Federal government both said she was right to report it.
What she got for 9 months of constant harassment at work, eventual termination with no references and untold hours of stress was a moderate settlement and unemployment.
Yes, there are whistleblower laws in place but the fact of the matter IMHO is that life is NOT fair. Those laws and systems are so complex and cumbersome that I doubt they do many folks any good at all.
I encouraged her all through the episode to do the “right thing”, tell “the truth”. Would I counsel her to do the same thing again? Heck NO! I would tell her to find a new job and then maybe pursue her complaints with her previous employer.
Standing up for the right thing is well and good if you are also willing to stand in the unemployment line. Life SHOULD be fair. RIGHT should always win… but the fact is it isn’t and it doesn’t I have always been such an optimistic person and the episode felt like it took a bit of my soul which is a hard thing to lose… but it made me a bit tougher, which isn’t all-in-all such a bad thing.