Occupational Safety & Health Administration Seeking Comments on Whistleblower & Anti-Retaliation Guidelines

By Douglas L. McSwain

On November 6, 2015, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) issued a news release that it will be accepting comments from the public on a draft document entitled, Best Practices for Protecting Whistleblowers and Preventing and Addressing Retaliation.  Comments will be accepted by OSHA until January 19, 2016.

The guidelines in this draft document are well worth reading for all employers.  They are generalized enough that they provide a good internal prevention program for avoiding litigation, and even if litigation is brought based on an employer’s alleged retaliation, their implementation could supply employers a good litigation defense to defeat an employee’s claim (assuming, of course, the employer has adopted these “best practices”).

The Department of Labor (“DOL”), of which OSHA is a branch, is increasingly becoming the governmental agency before whom employers are brought for retaliation claims arising out of any number of areas of law governing the employment relationship.  Not just complaints regarding workplace health

Whistleblowers Can Now File Complaints Online With OSHA

By Edwin S. Hopson

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently announced that whistleblowers covered by any one of 22 statutes administered by OSHA can now file complaints with the agency online.

“The ability of workers to speak out and exercise their rights without fear of retaliation provides the backbone for some of American workers’ most essential protections,” said OSHA Director Dr. David Michaels in an agency press release. “Whistleblower laws protect not only workers, but also the public at large and now workers will have an additional avenue available to file a complaint with OSHA.”

Currently, employees can make complaints to OSHA by filing a written complaint or by calling the agency’s 800 number or by calling an OSHA regional or area office. With this change, employees can now electronically submit a whistleblower complaint to OSHA by visiting www.osha.gov/whistleblower/WBComplaint.html.

The new online form prompts the worker to include basic whistleblower complaint information so they can be easily contacted for follow-up. Complaints are automatically routed to the appropriate regional whistleblower investigators. In addition, the complaint form can also be downloaded and submitted to the agency in hard-copy format by fax, mail or hand-delivery. The paper version is identical to the electronic version and requests the same information necessary to initiate a whistleblower investigation.

The whistleblower provisions of 22 statutes protect employees who report violations of various securities laws, trucking, airline, nuclear power, pipeline, environmental, rail, public transportation, workplace safety and health, and consumer protection laws.