Whistleblowing – Going It Alone or with Others
Badger-like, I worked alone as whistleblower. When I suspected legal violations at HomeFirst Services of Santa Clara County,
I investigated and documented them. I might have found support from Hilary, the
Chief Program Officer, but I didn’t. Cindy,
the Chief Development Officer, might have encouraged me but didn’t. I didn’t enlist anyone from my small
accounting department. When Jenny, the
CEO, began attacking me, Board members I’d
worked with for six years could have backed me, but no. I carried on by myself.
That’s how most people see whistleblowers: solitary, brave
(or, for some, wretched) warriors. As
individuals, they wrestle with the ethical questions of whistleblowing, and
they suffer the retaliations.
But whistleblowers often succeed with the support of others.
Famous Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg
was aided by the far less famous Anthony Russo. Those cases seem rare, though. Of the 126
determination letters from California’s
Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) in 2014, all but one describe
single actors.
In the exception, Godinez
& Arellano v. Velasquez dba Curiosidadis, the two employees attended a
labor commissioner’s hearing about Curiosidadis’s failure to provide meal/rest breaks
and to pay overtime and minimum wages. Immediately
afterward, their hours were cut, forcing Godinez and Arellano to quit. After not being paid properly by Velasquez, they
apparently joined to complain to the State.
Then they teamed up again to complain about losing their jobs. The DIR ordered Velasquez to pay them a total
of just $4,007 and to pay a fine of $20,000.
Eileen
Schuman, John Brock, and Susan Noe had worked for Lee County (Florida) for
years when they participated in the audit of a $5 million contract award to a
company owned
by the wife of a County executive. Proving
the illegality of the County’s contract award was complicated and required the joint
work of its finance officer, an analyst, and the compliance officer. Four months after they talked to auditors
they were dismissed because of budget restrictions, the County said. Almost four years later, their combined settlement
of $1.3 million seems near.
Like Godinez-Arellano and Schuman-Brock-Noe, Doreen
Coburn, the interim senior VP of operations at Charter Oak Health Center in
Connecticut, confided in authorities. In
December 2011, she told visiting the state inspectors about a patient with TB
and two employees who had been infected.
But that by itself probably did not get Coburn and two of her
subordinates fired. After the visit, she
wrote letters to Charter Oak’s president, its board of directors, and then to
state oversight agencies. When that didn’t
yield the result she wanted, she turned to Fox News on February 3, 2011. She and her employees were sacked three weeks
later. Coburn recently settled for
$85,000, and the others received $35,000 and $10,000.
Whistleblowing is such a personal business, I wonder about
motivations when people join with their bosses in revealing misdeeds. We hear the bosses’ stories: Time Magazine
Person of the Year Cynthia
Cooper’s book
describes the collapse of WorldCom, brought down with her disclosures and the assistance
of her colleagues. Cooper then found a successful
career in speaking and
consulting engagements. Harder to
learn, though, are the consequences for the now-forgotten who helped
her.
More understandable, for me, are the whistleblowers in the
Veterans Administration hospital system who united because of their commitment
to serve veterans. After trying internally
to improve things, eleven doctors and medical staff in New
Hampshire’s only hospital for veterans complained to the U.S. Office of
Special Counsel about legal violations, mismanagement, and danger to public
health – problems that included flies in the operating rooms and unsterilized surgical
instruments. In Cincinnati, 34
whistleblowers exposed performance problems at the VA Medical Center there. Across the country, so many VA facilities
have been accused of inadequate care and misreported wait times that a Facebook
site, VA Truth Tellers,
emerged to support their whistleblowers.
Some academics advise whistleblowers to improve their
chances for success by finding help outside their organizations[1]. After contentious national debate about the
war in Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg, a government insider, could discuss his concerns
with many in and out of government. Michael Sandknop,
who had contracted to provide video recording for the Missouri National Guard complained
that he did not have the tools necessary to do his job. Things spun out of control, and they fired
him. His whistleblower retaliation
complaint went nowhere until he got Senators
MacAskill and Grassley involved. But
contacting my Santa Clara County representative, State Congressional
representative, and U.S. Senator did nothing for me.
Edward Snowden famously succeeded in publishing his
discoveries by working with three
journalists. Less effectively, I contacted
journalists at San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Center for Investigative Reporting but
got nothing for it.
I have read hundreds of stories describing diligent work by attorneys
on behalf of their whistleblower clients.
Some, like Michele
Gutierrez, achieved impressive results in short order. But I fired
my feckless attorney after five months of inaction and a disheartening settlement
proposal. He went on to run for Congress against Nancy Pelosi[2],
and I turned, alone, to the Department of Industrial Relations.
Maybe my inability to get others involved in my project
reflects the limitations of my nature. Or
maybe my case – even with allegations of $1.5 million of fraudulent government
billings, the use of homeless men and women in unpaid work, among other charges
– is too small to deserve public interest.
Whatever the cause, I am confined to my role as a small-time
whistleblower.
[1]For
example, Glazer,
Myron Peretz and Penina Migdal Glazer. The Whistleblowers: Exposing Corruption in
Government and Industry. New York: Basic Books, Inc. 1989; Johnson, Roberta Ann. Whistleblowing:
When It Works and Why. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 2003
[2] No
great surprise: Stephen Jaffe’s campaign raised just $46,723 in the first six
months of 2017. Pelosi raised $1.4
million in the same period.
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