Report Acts as Guide for Corporate Employees
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) released Running the Gauntlet: The Campaign for Credible Corporate Whistleblower Rights. This report surveys the dangerous landscape of corporate whistleblower laws, and recommends strategies for corporate whistleblowers to best protect themselves from future retaliation.
GAP Legal Director Tom Devine, co-author of the report, explained its pressing need: “With inspiring exceptions since 2007, a primary obstacle to helping corporate whistleblowers has been dysfunctional legal whistleblower protections, which lead down a treacherous gauntlet of obstacles that could sabotage justice. But a turning point has been established in the last year with newfound rights.”
Since the last election, Congress has passed best practices laws for specific corporate whistleblowers, including ground transportation workers, defense contractors, and an estimated twenty million employees connected with the manufacture or sale of 15,000 retail products.
Devine continued, “While time, and judges, will tell if these newfound protections hold, this is a defining moment for the future of corporate accountability. This report lays out strategies for all corporate whistleblowers, until that day when protections are standardized, comprehensive and strong. This report serves as a life-ring for employees stuck in the current sea of unknown protections.”
The text contrasts footnoted legal research on current corporate whistleblowers rights as they appear in written law with the actual rights as they are interpreted and implemented by activist judges. The report includes appendices detailing: global best practices for whistleblower laws, texts of pending reform legislation, and an exhaustive guide to navigating the administrative to which whistleblowers have recourse under most laws.
The report, coauthored by Tarek Maassarani, is excerpted from a comprehensive corporate whistleblower survival guide, Committing the Truth, scheduled for publication next year. Devine explained, “The report is a street law course for whistleblowers based on thirty years of painful lessons learned, an introductory primer for practicing attorneys, and a call for order to replace legal anarchy.”
GAP’s call for reform is the context for all the report’s research, warnings and tips: The central recommendation is the enactment of legislation that institutionalizes a coherent, uniform system of legal rights. H.R. 4047, the Private Sector Whistleblower Streamlining Act of 2007, introduced in the House by Representatives George Miller and Lynn Woolsey, would institutionalize these rights for all federal health and safety laws. As the authors conclude, “The legislation is a good housekeeping measure to replace chaos with systematic rights reflecting modern standards.”
Added Devine: “This reform is a win-win from every perspective. All those who benefit from responsible whistleblowing should send a message to our elected leaders demanding their commitment to this reform, by co-sponsoring it in the House or introducing it in the Senate. It is time for all of us to blow the whistle on America’s corporate whistleblower laws.”
GAP is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization. Since 1977, GAP has legally represented thousands of whistleblowers, and provided direction to thousands more.