Learn all about the various whistleblowing protection acts passed to protect folks who do the proper thing

| Tuesday, January 24, 2012
By Ceith Holman


Whistleblowing Protection

On top of the incentivized activities of the government which are used to help fight the worrying increase of crime, the law also puts into effect protection provisions for whistleblowers. This suggests that they can be legally protected against any reprisal or retaliation,eg termination from their work, suspension, demotion, threats or victimization. If this happens then whistle blowers immediately have grounds for recourse. As an example if a person was found to have been cancelled because of their whistle blowing activities then they could register a claim for damages which could cover loss of salary, emotional and traumatic damages from losing their job and re-instatement of their position in the company (if they so wish).

Laws concerning whistleblowing in the U. S. are highly complicated and are in a number of cases, a patchwork of paradoxical principles relying on which state you live in. As an example you have the Whistleblower Protection Act which is commonly known as the WPA and this was put in place in 1989 and designed to protect whistle blowers who work within Fed agencies.

However there are particular federal departments in which this law doesn't protect and depending upon which state you are in it decrees who is and who is not covered under the WPA. Also filing a legitimate complaint for retaliation differs enormously from state to state and who you labor for.

As an example, a retaliation complaint in the State of Arizona has to be filed within ten days to the Arizona State Personnel Board if it is to be valid, while private sector workers have either 180 days or three hundred days to report their retaliation claims to the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. And solely to make things rather more difficult, an environmental whistleblower has thirty days to lodge a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) but the same governing body gives leverage of forty five days if you are an airline worker or company crime whistleblower.

So how can you sort out all the complicated laws? The truth is that you can't- you will need to call a seasoned lawyer and tell them the specifics of your current position. It's better not to wait as there is a statute of restrictions which implies that the clock's ticking on your case, and if you don't file in the time allotted, then the case is not valid.




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