OSHA to Disgruntled Employees: Blow the Whistle!

The U.S. government is sharpening its whistleblower protection program, hiring and training more OSHA agents to cultivate employee complaints against their companies.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants to increase the number of “whistleblower managers,” who work with disgruntled employees to dig up dirt on companies for alleged violations of workplace laws. Their work includes: copying business documents, e-mails, minutes; taking affidavits; sifting out whistleblowers most likely to bring in the biggest fines; dropping weak cases. See page 45 of this December 2010 OSHA report and you’ll see more on the OSHA agents’ information-collecting activities.

According to this memo“Since FY 2011, OSHA has hired more than 25 new investigators and appointed a new Acting Director. For its FY 2012 budget, OSHA established a separate line item for the whistleblower program to better track and hold accountable its activities and accomplishments, and requested a $6.1 million increase that will fund an additional 45 investigators.”

OSHA has completed a revision of its whistleblower field investigators manual, clarifying investigative methods and adding chapters on processing complaints filed under various acts. OSHA enforces 21 whistleblower laws that protect from retaliations employees who report violations of laws covering areas as diverse as workplace safety, the environment, consumer products, nuclear· safety, the financial system, food safety, and transportation infrastructure.

One provision it’ll be enforcing is Dodd-Frank, which includes a provision that if a whistleblower report results in a $1 million-plus penalty for the government, that the whistleblower gets a 10-percent bounty on that.

Here is a list of the whistleblower laws enforced by OSHA

1. Section II(c) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, 29 U.S.C. §660(c)
2. Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA), 15 U.S.C. §2651
3. International Safe Container Act (ISCA), 46 U.S.C. §80507
4. Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA), 49 U.S.C. §31105
5. Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. §7622
6. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. §9610
7. Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), 33 U.S.C. §1367
8. Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), 42 U.S.C. §300j- 9(i)
9. Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA), 42 U.S.C. §6971
10. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 15 U.S.C. §2622
11. Energy Reorganization Act (ERA), 42 U.S.C. §5851
12. Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (AIR21), 49 U.S.C. §42121
13. Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act, Title VIII of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), 18 U.S.C. §1514A (SOX)
14. Pipeline Safety Improvement Act (PSIA), 49 U.S.C. §60129
15. Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA), 49 U.S.C. §20109
16. National Transit Systems Security Act (NTSSA), 6 U.S.C. §1142
17. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), 15 U.S.C. §2087
18. Affordable Care Act (ACA), 29 U.S.C. §218C
19. Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 (CFPA), Section 1057 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, 12 U.S.C. §5567
20. Seaman’s Protection Act, 46 U.S.C. §2114 (SPA), as amended by Section 611 of the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010, P.L. 111-281
21. FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), 21 U.S.C. §399d