This is the real deal. A bill with teeth. Let’s help give it legs!
Rep. Lynn Woolsey has introduced a bill to give private sector, state and municipal employees greater protection against retaliation when they report illegal or unethical conduct by their superiors. The bill, titled The Private Sector Whistleblower Protection Streamlining Act of 2007 is the latest in a series of bills designed to help people who risk their jobs to report wrongdoing. (Read text of H.R. 4047). As currently written, the bill says:
“No responsible party (employer) shall take any unfavorable personnel action against a whistleblower . . . It is the sense of Congress that the provisions of this section and section 101 shall be construed broadly to maximize the Act’s remedial objectives and for the benefit of the public.”
The Government Accountability Project says the new law would create a uniform set of protections to replace “a crazy quilt of contradictory, hit or – usually miss protections tucked into specific public health and safety laws.” Woolsey’s proposal has 13 democratic co-sponsors.
Congress has been trying to strengthen whistleblower laws across the board, and with some success. For instance, an Accountability Project press release notes that President Bush recently signed into law enhanced whistleblower protections for ground transportation employees; the full Senate has approved stronger protections for defense contactors in the FY2007 defense bill; and the Senate Commerce Committee is trying to give whistleblowers in product safety similar help.
Better protections for whistleblowers are desperately needed. A while back I blogged a bit based on a Mother Jones piece about the ways whistleblowers have been targeted for punishment. In another blog I cite the case of a whistleblower who simply could not get media to pay attention to his complaint.
The best possible way to police the government – and with the Woolsey bill, corporations, as well, – is to to protect people who risk their livelihoods and reputations to expose wrongdoings that would otherwise remain hidden. The National Whistleblower Center reminds us why:
“Employee whistleblowers now accounnt for the majority of all civil fraud recoveries obtained by the United States. For example between 2000-2006, the Department of Justics recovered $12 billion in civil fraud recoveries ($12,093,022,897). Whistleblowers were responsible for $7 billion ($7,972,051,660) worth of these recoveries, or 65.9 percent.”
Do whatever you can to keep up the momentum for whistleblower reforms. Write or call your congressional representative or write a letter to the editor. If you are an editor, write an editorial!
Well Tom,
I’m finally coming out about my past. Four years ago, I was a non-frivolous whistleblower assaulted while at the Department of Labor. And I’ve got news for you. Under the Whistleblower Protection Act, whistleblowers are not protected from much. For instance, they are not protected from assault. (Yes, I have the legal documentation and can back this up) Fortunately for private sector employees, they may be covered by tort. Public sector employees are not covered by tort, and are in no man’s land.
I briefly read the proposal, and my concern with the bill is not with the intent, but with the teeth. Until the court system is fixed, this bill is useless and misleading to anyone who may make a disclosure. I read with skepticism, the words “administrative judge.” An administrative judge, to me, is a person unable or unwilling to work the lucrative life of a attorney. An administrative judge is a person who wants to make a quick decision for his employer and go home at the end of the day. And his employer is the government.
You make mention of the Mother Jones article, which was an excellent one. I recommend it to anyone looking into the enormity of the problem that exists today. I refer to DEA agent Sandalio Gonzalez, whose disclosure of murder was dismissed without investigation. After a quarter of a decade of dedicated service, he retired after being transferred and retaliated against. I assure you that the small financial settlement he received was nothing compared to the betrayal felt, or the shock of finding that these lengthy statutes meant nothing.
Thanks to you, I will look into this proposed bill more closely. However, assurances that the Secretary of Labor will be the overseer does nothing to elicit my support. I spent $50,000 of my own money protecting the freedom that Americans enjoy while she and her thugs fought us every inch of the way. It was only after we published the hearing transcript on the internet that she start issuing statements disclaiming retaliation and finally allowed me to do my job.
By the way, I’ve started a new blog with some thoughts on the process, called “Government Accountability is a Citizen’s Responsibility.” It can be found at: http://www.fedhallofshame.com.
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More food for thought from Mother Jones, a timely post from 11/6 on Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate whistleblowing:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/11/6097_where_good_laws.html
Big business groups managed to get enforcement of the new law vested with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a notoriously toothless agency in the Labor Department.
. . .only 13 out of 491 employees who filed complaints with OSHA found any sort of relief for their claims of retaliation and other repercussions resulting from blowing the whistle. Only six succeeded on appeal.