History of Whistleblowing
The definition of a whistleblower is a past or pesent employee or member of an organization, who reports misconduct to people or entities that have the power and presumed willingness to take corrective action, or to notify the general public of wrongdoing. In most cases, whistleblowers are employees of the ogranization but can be employees of government agencies as well. Normally the misconduct being reported is a violation of law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest such as fraud, health, safety violations, and corruption. The word whistleblower originates from the old practice of English bobbies who would blow their whistle when they noticed a crime that was being committed. The blowing of the whistle would alert both law enforcement officers and the general public of danger. (Wikipedia, 2007).
Whistleblowing is not something that is new to today’s modern business world, however, it has grown so much that there is much more impact to all parties involved including the whistleblower. Depending on the magnitue of the misconduct being reported, it will not only change the company and the whistleblower, but also may change the society and how it views different businesses or business in general. Although whistleblowing is not new, the modern day attitude towards it has changed greatly. Before the 1960s, corporations had broad freedom in employee policies and could fire an employee at will, even if no reason existed. Employees of organizations were expected to be loyal to their organizations at all costs. Among the few exceptions to this rule were unionized employees, who could only be terminated for "just cause," and government employees because the courts upheld their constitutional right to criticize agency policies. In the private industry, few real procedures for airing grievances existed. Partly because of this lack of protection for whistleblowers, problems were often hidden rather than solved. Probably the most atrocious example was in asbestos manufacturing, where the link to lung disease was clearly established as early as 1924 but actively hidden by company officials from the public and other agencies. The first product liability lawsuit against an asbestos manufacturer was not successfully publicized until 1971.
In the 1970s, there were many memorable cases where potential whistleblowers decided not to act and ended up causing serious harm to employees and consumers alike, as well as the organizations as soon as the information went public that they had known of potential dangers.
Corruption is a persistent problem that plagues the world and it knows no boundaries. Transparency International defines it as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain” (2013). For the purposes of this thread, ‘corruption’ is defined as any individual, collective, or structural act or process that permits the use of public authority or position for private gain. This definition captures the broad and many ways individuals and institutions abuse power and the public trust. In regard to whistleblowing, much conflict stems from the context in which the whistleblower is viewed.
dangers in the nuclear plant because the bosses just ignored it. The bosses and workers are not
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was drafted to encourage and protect whistleblowers from retaliation after the fraud scandal that cause the collapse of Enron in 2001. In a 2010 Senate Report found that “external auditors detected only 4.1 percent of uncovered fraud schemes, “whistleblower tips detected 54.1% of uncovered fraud schemes in public companies” and were thirteen times more effective than external audits” (Turpan, 2016). Whistleblowers serve an important service to the public and are more effective than external audits. The CFAA has been used to by employers to retaliate against employees who act as informants for agencies like Internal Revenue Service or Security Exchange Commission to expose fraud. There employees, not to their financial gain, gather information as evidence of fraud by the company. With a broad interpretation of CFAA, the employee would "exceed their authority" and was "unauthorized" to access the information, therefore allowing the company to hide their illegal
Bouville (2008) describes whistleblowing as an act for an employee of revealing what he believes to be unethical or described as an illegal behaviour to a higher management (internal whistleblowing) or to an external authority or the public (external whistleblowing). Whistle-blowers are often seen as traitors to an organisation as they are considered to have violated the loyalty terms of that organisation while some are described as heroes that defend the values and ethics of humanity rather than loyalty to their company. In the medical community, it is the duty of a practitioner aware of patient care being threatened to make it known to those in charge and for those in charge to address the issues and act on it. The General Medical Council (GMC) stipulated this act of raising concern as a doctor’s duty in its Good medical practice guide. This paper will be based on the analysis of the experience of whistle blowers, reasons why they chose or chose not to take such actions and personal opinions on whistleblowing in the medical community.
Corporate executives like Kenneth Lay and Martha Stewart were taken before the court for poor ethical practices. Leaders of pharmaceutical companies have been found knowing about distribution of unsafe products. Leaders at Coke Cola were found guilty of racial discrimination and leaders of cruise ships fined for dumping waste in the ocean. News reports exposed Wall Street analysts who created phony reports, made profits, and pushing worthless stocks, left citizens questioning if they should invest their money. Leaders of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, were cited for practices of employee abuses and gender discrimination.
Whistle blowing is a controversial topic in the professional industry. Whistle blowing is the act of speaking out against a fellow colleague or even a friend that has done something non-ethical or illegal in the workplace. A whistleblower raises concerns about the wrongdoing inside of the workplace. Employees hesitate to become a whistleblower because of the idea of becoming a snitch on fellow employees and having a bad rep around the office. This concern was lowered in 1989 with a law called the Whistleblower Protection Act that protects federal government employees in the United States from retaliatory action for voluntarily disclosing information about dishonest or illegal activities occurring at a government organization (whistleblowers.gov).
The term Whistleblower means “An employee who discloses information that s/he reasonably believes is evidence of illegality, gross waste or fraud, mismanagement, abuse of power, general wrongdoing, or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. When information is classified or otherwise restricted by Congress or Executive Order, disclosures only are protected as whistleblowing if made through designated, secure channels. (What is a Whistleblower?)” The idea behind whistleblowers is that they believe trying to inform the public of illegal acts within their businesses has the potential to protect the public from wrongdoing. The following studies analyze scholar’s findings on different factors related to whistle blowing as
Many other businesses may not want to do business as the company was involved with immoral behavior. The unethical business practices of the company will also gain exposure in the media and to the public (Nicol, 2015, n.p). Employees no longer keep unethical activities of the company to themselves. As a whistleblower, they may be perceived as a traitor, but in this case the senior executives are being traitors. They are taking money from immoral behavior and tarnishing the name of the company (Nicol, 2015, n.p).
On November 29th, Mary Inman gave us a talk on the topic whistleblowing, which let me know more about the whistleblower activities and the whistleblower protection. According to the definition given by the website whistleblowers international, whistleblowing is someone who reveal the unethical or illegal activities within the company. The person can be current or past employee, or an outside individual who is familiar with the unethical activity. This whistleblower does not need to be U.S. citizen.
First I will be telling you about the pressure of being a “whistleblower”. In Fahrenheit 451 the pressure of being a “whistleblower” is so real, everyone is told to rat out everyone who has a book in their household, if they find out they have a book in the home it is burned to the ground. This is related to our society because we are pressured to do what is right, and part of my belief system is to do what is right and to point out what is wrong. For example if someone were to gossip behind their back I would try to stand up and tell them it is wrong and tell the person what the others said
However, it may not be the best solution to be used first when dealing with unethical corporate practices. From more of a Utilitarian approach one should seek to do the greatest good. An approach that gives the company a chance to change its unethical behavior internally would follow this idea. Having the ability to change practices internally before outside intervention can have many positive effects. The company is able to make the changes, reestablish its integrity, maintain business, and retain employees. The whistleblowing option brings in outside forces that could lead to repercussions for the company which may include restitution or even being closed down. If the business is closed it effects more than just the corporate entity, all of the employees are also negatively impacted by this as well when they would lose their jobs. Sometimes however, when the company is unwilling to change its practices and do business in a more ethical manner people are left with little choice but to report to outside sources what is occurring within the business. Many see whistleblowing as law-breaking when employees are contractually obligated to
For this essay, I will evaluate the Employee Loyalty Argument derived from ‘Whistleblowing and Employee Loyalty’ by Ronald Duska. I will argue that this Employee Loyalty Argument is deductively valid but is not deductively sound because premise 2 is false. I will justify my claims that premise 2 is false by arguing about how it is rational for employees to expect their companies to recognize and fulfill a duty of loyalty to their employees if the employees also have a duty of loyalty to the companies that employ them.
By inducting ethical business practices, the need for whistleblowers will not be needed, but there is always someone that crosses the line. Therefore, by encouraging whistleblowing and supervised departmental and corporate performance concerning ethical questions. Whistleblowing is an ethical procedure when there is clear evidence of serious evidence, that will harm the public and the blower has tried to find an internal solution to effect change. The whistleblower who is associated with the unethical activity has a moral responsibility to do the right thing. Companies always know there is a possibility that the whistle will be blown, in this case the obstacle is created by knowledge that their employees stand to gain an advantage from uncovering corporate misbehaviour and thus they may be proactively looking for other people outside the organization to inform the authorities.
Morality is the biggest and best reason for this act because people generally want to do the good moral thing. If a person should have to blow the whistle on a company they should know that for every action there is a reaction, and the reaction of whistle blowing might lead to getting fired. One of the most controversial types of whistle blowing is that of impersonal. If a company is making products that are unsafe because they are trying to save a few dollars, an employee could see this as immoral and tell the public about it. The whistle blower would do this based on Kant's theory. It would be following the moral law to do so. If a company is cutting corners and hurting others, it would be morally unacceptable not to blow the whistle on this company. To knowingly let innocent people get hurt because of something that you could have stopped is morally wrong. A lot of people would blow the whistle on a company that is making unsafe products, but not all. A number of people would not inform the public of the company's wrongdoings. They would not do it out of fear that they might loose there job or even be blacklisted from the industry altogether. If they are not fired they will most likely be outcasts at their job and looked over at promotion time.
...ends to be a whistleblower may be in a position of losing his or her contract (New York University Conference on Labor, 1997). The courts will uphold the project. This makes it hard for a mechanical engineer working in such a position because they can do little to prevent disaster or damage. Such instances can result to extreme cases such as the infamous Chernobyl disaster (Yoroshinka et al, 2011).