A Brief Look at the Whistleblower Protection Act
The term ‘whistleblower’ refers to someone who recognizes unethical or illegal behavior and reports it to the applicable authorities. In the corporate world, employees who blow the whistle on illegal or unethical activities are often treated unfairly. When employees are whistleblowers they often expose themselves to possible retribution from their corporate superiors. The simple fact is that no employee should have their livelihood put into jeopardy because they have cooperated with police or other authorities in a legal investigation by providing information about their company’s illegal activities to the authorities.
There are many different actions that corporate superiors often take to frighten corporate whistleblowers and thus discourage future whistleblowers from turning in information about future illegal activity. Corporate superiors will often seek retaliation and fire the employee, suspend their employee or threaten them and harass the employee in such a way that they believe that their job is jeopardy because they spoke the truth to investigators. The law passed in the late 1980’s, the Whistleblower Protection Act, was created just to counteract these tendencies.
The Whistleblower Protection Act stipulates that as long as the action of the employee who alerted authorities about the illegal activity was not in and of itself illegal, there should be no retribution at all from anyone in the company. The Whistleblower Protection Act even protects employees when it turns out that what their employer did was not an actual crime as long as the employee’s arguments are credible that they believed what the employer did was illegal. What this means is that, under the Whistleblower Protection Act, no one should feel too frightened to come forward when their corporate superiors are breaking the law.
Those who have been unjustly disciplined, suspended or even fired for providing information about illegal activities occurring in their workplace can usually file a legitimate grievance on the grounds of the whistleblower protection laws. Whistleblowers can file their grievances in federal courts. In the case of personal disagreements with their company superiors, whistleblower protections do not apply. Basically, this means that those who are disciplined or fired in the course of company politics can not file a grievance based on the Whistleblower Protection Act.
If you believe that you have been unfairly treated by your employer because of information that you provided investigators concerning illegal activity you will need the help of an attorney who has a working understanding of the whistleblower laws. The best way to do this is to first search the Internet for more information about the Whistleblower Protection Act and other whistleblower protection laws that are designed to protect you from the retaliation of your company superiors. If you want to find more information about how you can file a grievance with an attorney based on your protections under the Whistleblower Protection Act all you have to do is perform an Internet search for information about whistleblower protection laws.
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