Whistleblowing Retaliation

UPDATED IN MARCH 2013 to include the historic $104-million Bradley Birkenfeld whistleblower case and more! From the nation’s leading whistleblower attorney, comes the third edition of the first-ever consumer guide to whistleblowing. In The Whistleblower’s Handbook, Stephen Martin Kohn explains nearly all federal and state laws regarding whistleblowing. In the step-by-step bulk of the book, he also presents twenty-one rules for whistleblowers.

Each year, the New York University Annual Conference on Labor calls on outstanding scholars and practitioners in the field to come together to survey and analyze new developments and trends in U.S. labor law and practice. This volume reproduces the texts (updated and reworked by the authors) presented at the 2007 Conference, the 60th in this venerable and highly influential series, at which the theme was and“Retaliation and Whistleblowersand” . There could not be a more timely exploration of this complex workplace issue. The United States Supreme Court, in several pending cases and in the recent landmark cases of Burlington Northern v. White and Garcetti v. Ceballos, has turned its full attention to workplace retaliation claims. States and municipalities also continue to struggle in laying out the scope of permissible claims under state constitutional and statutory whistleblower provisions and under the common law of wrongful discharge. Among the new and significant issues considered in this volume are the following: new limits on the scope of the cause of action in the wake of Burlington Northern; implied protection of employee activity under ADEA and the FLSA; the scope of and“protected activityand” under and§ 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; issues of privilege when investigation counsel are used to inform corporate decision-making; state whistleblower laws and the expansion or preemption of common law protections under the common law tort of wrongful discharge; NLRA protection of collective protests by non-union workers; and potential expansion of the formal definition of and“jobsand” under Garcetti v. Ceballos to foreclose the first amendment avenue. Besides papers by panelists at the Conference, ten other leading practitioners and academics also provide commentary in this volume. As always, this important annual publication offers definitive current scholarship in its theme area of labor and employment law. As such, it will be of inestimable value to practitioners, government officials, academics and others interested in developments in U.S. employment and labor relations law and practice.

Written by Edward T. Ellis, Gregory C. Keating and the Attorneys of Littler's Whistleblowing and Corporate Ethics Practice Group.Highlights of developments covered by the Sixth Edition include:NEW expanded chapters on federal whistleblower protections under the False Claims Act, OSHA, ACA and other actsComprehensive update of significant legislation, case law and agency decisions since December 2015, including:Deep analysis on the protections given to employees at the state level across the United StatesDramatic developments under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, including the implications of civil provisions of section 806 of SOX, and the remedial scheme implemented to enforce itDevelopments in hot topic areas like The "Stepping Out of the Role" defense, cybersecurity and retaliatory acts outside the employment contextDevelopments in the extraterritorial application of SOX and Dodd-Frank, and new legislation regarding whistleblower protections and data privacy outside the U.S.

This book analyzes the harms related to whistleblower retaliation, its psychosocial impacts on employees, and the institutional dysfunction it creates and perpetuates. Stigma and biases against whistleblowers interfere with their ability to make protected disclosures when harm to others is at stake. Retaliatory toxic tactics create an atmosphere and corporate culture that embodies fear and encourages bystander behavior. In this book, the authors explore psychosocial impacts across domains that include financial, legal, social, physical, and emotional well-being. Ten of the 14 chapters specifically examine the toxic tactics of retaliation: gaslighting, mobbing, marginalizing, shunning, devaluing, double-binding, career blocking, counter-accusing, bullying, and doxxing. These toxic tactics are the building blocks of workplace traumatic stress (WTS) and can lead to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, substance abuse, and suicide. WTS is a term that differentiates between workplace violence or job stress, which can be components of WTS but do not fully describe the systemic hostile work environment that targets an employee. Understanding WTS and how it disrupts identity, causes moral injury, and shatters world views are important aspects for clinicians treating clients who are victims of this kind of hostile work environment. The Psychosocial Impacts of Whistleblower Retaliation is a useful resource offering a new way for social workers, mental health providers, advocates, and other support services professionals and practitioners to assist whistleblowers. It helps clinicians understand how to view patients suffering from whistleblower retaliation and gives them a lexicon for forensic evaluations. Lawyers, especially those specializing in employment, labor, and Qui Tam cases, also could benefit from having a means to describe the psychosocial impacts of retaliation and WTS on their clients when filing for compensatory damages for pain and suffering during judicial proceedings. Finally, the book could appeal to employees and managers, human resources professionals, victim rights advocates, elected officials, media personnel, and other professionals who are interested in learning more about whistleblower retaliation and its psychosocial and cultural implications.

As a young, black, MIT-educated social scientist, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo landed her dream job at the EPA, working with Al Gore, assisting post-apartheid South Africa. But when she tried to get the government to investigate allegations that a multinational corporation was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of South Africans mining vanadium—a vital strategic mineral--she found that the EPA was the first line of defense for the corporation. When the agency stonewalled, Coleman-Adebayo blew the whistle. How could she know that the agency with a hippie-like logo would use every racist and sexist trick in their playbook in retaliation? The EPA cost her her career, endangered her family, and sacrificed more lives in the vanadium mines of South Africa—but also brought about an upwelling of support from others in the federal bureaucracy who were fed up with its crushing repression. Upon prevailing in court, Coleman-Adebayo organized a grassroots struggle to bring protection to all federal employees facing discrimination and retribution from the government. The No FEAR Coalition that she organized waged a two-year-long battle with Congress over the need to protect whistleblowers—and won. This book is her harrowing story.

The unbelievable true story of the young woman who faced down one of the most valuable startups in Silicon Valley history--and what came after In 2017, twenty-five-year-old Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing the sexual harassment and retaliation she'd experienced as an entry-level engineer at Uber. The post went viral, leading not only to the ouster of Uber's CEO and twenty other employees, but "starting a bonfire on creepy sexual behavior in Silicon Valley that . . . spread to Hollywood and engulfed Harvey Weinstein" (Maureen Dowd, The New York Times). When Susan decided to share her story, she was fully aware of the consequences most women faced for speaking out about harassment prior to the #MeToo era. But, as her inspiring memoir, Whistleblower, reveals, this courageous act was entirely consistent with Susan's young life so far: a life characterized by extraordinary determination, a refusal to accept things as they are, and the desire to do what is good and right. Growing up in poverty in rural Arizona, she was denied a formal education--yet went on to obtain an Ivy League degree. When she was told, after discovering the pervasive culture of sexism, harassment, racism, and abuse at Uber, that she was the problem, she banded together with other women to try to make change. When that didn't work, she went public. She could never have anticipated what would follow: that she would be investigated, followed, and harrassed; that her words would change much more than Uber; or that they would set her on a course toward finally achieving her dreams. The moving story of a woman's lifelong fight to do what she loves--despite repeatedly being told no or treated as less-than--Whistleblower is both a riveting read and a source of inspiration for anyone seeking to stand up against inequality in their own workplace.

From Erin Brockovich to Enron, whistleblowers who “challenge abuses of power that betray the public trust” have proven to be an unfortunate necessity in modern business culture. Their efforts to report crimes, fraud, and dangers to public health and safety have saved millions of lives and billions of dollars of shareholder value – and had we heeded the warnings of whistleblowers, perhaps disasters such as the Bernie Madoff scandal and the Lehman Brothers meltdown could have been averted. Recent federal legislation in finance and health reform have cemented legal protections and mechanisms for whistleblowing. This book provides a thorough guide and history to the whistleblower's legal rights. The ultimate survival guide, it provides advice on getting help and finding allies, warns that retaliation is often the reward for "committing the truth" and shows how to weather the storm. With extensive legal texts, sample letters, resources, and information on upcoming whistleblower reforms, this is the ultimate source on the subject.

Whistleblowers help safeguard the federal government against waste, fraud, and abuse -- however, they also risk retaliation by their employers. For example, in 2002, a former FBI agent allegedly suffered retaliation after disclosing that colleagues had stolen items from Ground Zero following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Department of Justice (DOJ) found in her favor over 10 years after she reported the retaliation. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed DOJ's process for handling such complaints and in this book examines the time DOJ took to resolve FBI whistleblower retaliation complaints; the extent to which DOJ took steps to resolve complaints more quickly; and the extent to which DOJ complied with certain regulatory reporting requirements. Furthermore, in the context of the Intelligence Community (IC), whistleblowers are generally employees or contractors of federal intelligence agencies who bring to light information on agency wrongdoings. The threat of retaliation may deter potential whistleblowers from disclosing information on agency wrongdoing. There is seemingly tension between the desire to eliminate this deterrence, and thus encourage whistleblowers to bring agency misconduct to light, and the need to protect government secrets which, if disclosed publicly, could be harmful to the country's national security interests. This book concludes with a discussion on three sources of IC whistleblower protection against retaliation.