One of the cases reviewed that relates to the responsibilities under the OSH Act and Whistle Blower Protection Plan is the case between the U.S. Department of Labor and John Deere on July 9th, 2015, civil action number : 4:15-cv-04079-SLD-JEH (US Department of Labor , 2015). In this case an employee of John Deere was wrongfully terminated on June 4, 2012 in retaliation for reporting unsafe working conditions on three separate occasions to OSHA. The employee reported in April of 2010 that the company was exposing employees to serious fall hazards in which the company received a violation. He then reported in January of 2012, that the lock out/tag out provision was not being followed and exposes employees to crushing injuries or even amputations. …show more content…
Under this statute employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees that exercise their rights to the act. The Whistle blower protection plan protects employees from adverse employment actions such as disciplining, blacklisting, demoting, denying overtime, denying benefits, threats or harassment, reducing pay or hours, reassignment affecting prospects for promotion, and including firing or laying off (U.S. Department of Labor). The fact of proof that the employee reported the company to OSHA on three occasions; as a result the employer received several citations for violating the standard and was then conveniently fired after the third notification resulted in the findings of violating the whistle blower and anti-retaliations provision of the OSH Act (US Department of Labor , 2015). Basically this provision states that “employers must not terminate employees because they have filed charges, given testimony, participated in the enforcement of employment laws, or opposed violations of these laws (Walsh, 2016, 2013)”. In this case the employee prevails as the courts determine the company is required to reinstate him to his former position, pay back wages and for damages, pay all attorney fees and remove all disciplinary information from his employee file (US Department of Labor , …show more content…
The Administrative Review Board of the Department of Labor, case 11-2594 on September 2, 2011 (LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP., Petitioner, v. ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BOARD, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Respondent, 2011). In this case, Lockheed Martin is cited for an adverse employment action, therefore constructive discharging an employee because of her protected activity. The facts that support this allegation is the employee notified HR of an ethics concern involving her boss who is the VP of Communications who’s actions may be illegal. On May 25, 2006 HR anonymously submits the ethic complaint on her behalf. In investigation took place and the pen pal program with the military was discontinued in days. On December 19, 2006 the VP contacted the employee wanting to know who turned her in, she admitted to making a few comments to but not clear that it resulted in the investigation. The employee went from receiving exceptional performance ratings to a contributor. On February 22, 2007 the employees department was restructured and she no longer had any direct reports. A few months later her job was posted on the internet, when she applied for it was told that she was not qualified. When the new person started she was asked to vacate her office and her level was reduced resulting in her no longer qualifying for an office. The employee suffered depression and took a FLMA leave. On January 25, 2008 the employee contacted
...g went to the fact that even though the business did not purposely discriminate, it did in fact due to a policy that is discriminatory in nature. In other words, the true reason for the firing was directly related to substance abuse. Although the employee was technically not let go due to the abuse specifically, the fact that this occurred in fact is enough to render the policy unfair. I feel that this law provides great value to my workplace as, it protects those who have made mistakes at the workplace due to a disability. In this case it was substance abuse, but the same concept could be applied to other conditions that alter behavior.
In this Whistleblower Case Cecilia Guardiola, a former employee of Renown Health filed a lawsuit under the False Claims Act against Renown Health on June 1, 2012. The plaintiff alleged that fraudulent Medicare claims have been submitted by Renown Health for short stay inpatient claims that should have been outpatient claims. The original complaint that was filed has been seal according to order at the request of the plaintiff (Health, 2014). According to information from case Guardiola was hired by Renown Health June 2009 as Director of Clinical Documentation with main responsibility to improve the medical documentation to support and enhanced billing. Guardiola was then promoted to a new position as Director of Clinical Compliance, she later resigned in January 2012 alleged that efforts to improve the billing system were precluded by Renown. (Guardiola v. Renown Health, 2014).
Rehrig Pacific Company has been in business since 1913. Over 100 years in business, family owned and operated since then. Now on its 5 generation of owners. Rehrig Pacific has been in business since before the creation of OSHA and the OSH act of 1970. For years Rehrig worked and produced products and did their best to provide a safe workplace for their employees as they saw as extended family. There were many things done in the past that would not be okay to do in today’s safety world. Safety guards on machines were not used, at many times taken off to increase productivity and efficiency. Employees would climb on top of equipment was part of
Facts: In the above case, employee Joel Hernandez was tested positive for cocaine. With the fear of being dismissed from his job, he acknowledged that his behaviour violated petitioner Raytheon Company's workplace conduct rules, and obviously, was pressed to quit his job. Also, the reason for the employee resignation was also based on the notion that had he not resigned it would be petitioner who would eventually fired him from his work. After more than two years of rehabilitation, petitioner applied to be re-employed alleging on his application that the following had previously hired him. In his application, he also attached letters coming from, his pastor about his active church participation and from an Alcoholics Anonymous counsellor about his regular visit and attendance at meetings and his immediate recovery. When a HR employee of petitioner reviewed Hernandez application, she then rejected his application on the ground that petitioner has a policy against rehiring employees who are terminated for workplace wrongdoing. According to the HR employee, she did not know that that employee was a former drug addict when she rejected his application. As a result to this development, Hernandez instituted a suit and filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), averring that his rights has been violated in consonant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Therefore, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as a consequence, gave a go signal to the respondent and issued a right-to-sue letter and the right to file an ADA action. Following this, respondent established an Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) action, alleging that petitioner did not act on his application for the reason that he has a record of drug addition and/or because he was known before as being a drug user. On the other hand, petitioner responded by filing a summary judgement motion. This resulted to respondent's argumentation in the alternative that in the case that petitioner sought for a neutral no-rehire policy in his case, it is still sufficient to a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) because of that policy's disparate impact.
Central to Duska’s discussion is his altered concept of loyalty. I however, do not find his line of argument completely convincing. And had Duska’s concept, of what loyalty is, been different in regard to the employee-employer relationship; then his entire contention that whistle-blowing does not require moral justification would be unfounded. Considering that loyalty is defined by; devotion, allegiance, obedience and faithfulness, it seems completely reasonable that an employee should feel such sentiment and natural devotion to the firm which employs him. Especially, for those who consider this source of their livelihood; as a full-fledged career rather than simply a job.
In this particular case study there was an employee Jeanette Landis whose supervisor Paul was submitting a termination request to the Human Resource department. His reasoning for submitting the termination request comes from consistently poor job performance on the part of Landis. He communicates that there was numerous attempt made by leadership to help Landis improve the poor performance. However, no attempt at seemed to have a positive impact on her reaching her sales goals. After months of poor job performance Paul finally submits request for termination. Of course the employee was not happy about the termination news. In response to termination paperwork being submitted, Landis has responded by seeking legal action against the organization.
Breach in individual rights is evident in the case of ex-Lockheed manager Kenneth Branch who unlawfully gained access to “25000 documents containing proprietary technical and cost information of Lockheed”. This concerns Lockheed’s copyright and privacy issue.
Congress did provide for special exemptions from programmed OSHA inspections. These exemptions apply to small business that felt they were being subjected to many undue inspections. This provision does not completely exempt them from OSHA visiting the workplace to investigate complaints, injuries, or provide assistance. Some workplaces that have a lower than average accident rates can fall under the voluntary protection program. They are still subject to OSHA inspections if complaints are received or if an incident occurs.
Primarily, the employee was in violation of federal laws, which protect employees regarding slanderous or racially remarks. According to Title VII, it is...
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).
Employment at will is a law that is present in all fifty states in the US; although, in Montana there requires a stated cause for termination. Employment at will creates dissent among employees when they have been terminated for a cause that is thought to be unsubstantial or when no cause is given. There are pros and cons to the presumption, and employees and employers have different views. Employment at will means that the employer can terminate an employee at any time, for any cause without warning. However, even an at-will employee cannot be terminated because of discriminatory reasons. Employment at will also means that an employee can leave a job at any time without the fear of facing any legal consequences. An employer can also change the terms of employment without notice and no penalties. Throughout this paper, the two sides to employment at will will be discussed, and different examples of employment at will cases will be given. At its most basic, employment at will is not the best path because it can create feelings of violation and betrayal in the employee and can create a negative public opinion or loss of profit for the business.
Facts of the case: Anna’s immediate supervisor, Michael, repeatedly required that she have “closed door” meetings with him. Closed-door meetings violate company policy. Other employees were aware of these closed-door meetings and, as a result, rumors began to spread that Anna and Michael were having an office romance. In fact, in these closed-door meetings Michael tried to convince Anna to lend him money, a practice that also violates company policy. Anna repeatedly denied the request and Michael stopped asking. However, the rumors continued and affected Anna deeply. She was treated like an outcast by her co-workers. Anna asked Michael to clear up the rumors, but he found them amusing. Anna had two evaluations where she scored low points for “integrity” and “interpersonal relations” as a consequence of the rumors. She was passed over for two promotions for which she applied where her skills and experience were superior to the employees who were promoted. She filed an action against her employer on the ground that her supervisor had created a hostile work environment because he refused to stop the rumors.
United States of America. National Employment Law Project. National Employment Law Project. N.p., Jan. 2011. Web. 18 May 2014.
Management has to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s regulations, or risk getting fined. There are many cases where companies try to cut costs, violate rules made by OSHA, and hide any unsafe conditions or ask their employees to lie about it. Putting employees in danger to make a greater profit goes against their corporate responsibility and makes their company lack integrity. Upper level management should make policies against using unsafe practices and lower level management lying about work conditions. They should also promote that employees report unsafe conditions to management and not penalize employees for “whistle-blowing”. Johnson & Johnson’s credo states, “…working conditions [must be] clean, orderly, and safe” (Code of Business Conduct, 2015). Johnson & Johnson implemented a variety of programs to make sure their employees are safe within the workplace including: machine, electrical, contractor, warehouse, and office safety, hazardous processes, and fall prevention (Workplace Safety, 2013). Johnson & Johnson works to reduce their workplace injuries each year and even gets employees and their families to help come up with new programs to further reduce unsafe situations in the workplace. All this contributes to why Johnson &
Part 2 of Employer Duties and Rights- management rights, subcontracting, just-cause discipline and discharge, and safety standards.