When We Lose (Part 2)
My whistleblowing began in July 2013 when I disclosed government
overbilling
by HomeFirst Services of Santa Clara
County. After more disclosures, I was
fired in June 2014. My project ended in
November 2017 when the State
of California decided I was not a whistleblower at all.
When big-time players are denounced as not really
whistleblowers, we know better. Some called
Edward Snowden nothing
more than a traitor, but that was silly.
The same goes for calling Chelsea
Manning just a traitor. When little
guys like me are denied the whistleblower title, it’s harder for others to
judge.
California’s Labor Commissioner decides against most people
who complain they were fired because they disclosed wrongdoing. My public records request for copies of the 158 determination
letters issued in 2015 yielded 100
actual letters. Of those, 80 favored
the employers.
From this lot, some arguments siding with employers seem
stretched. For example, letters written
to five fired welders[1]
at Newton, Inc. (dba Newtron Electric) acknowledged safety issues they
raised. The company was not prepared for
the welders it hired, the Commissioner allowed.
There wasn’t enough safety equipment.
Welding hoods were not fitted. Their
foreman didn’t know much about welding. There
were problems with scaffold adjustments; on-site welding procedures were
missing; and inappropriate staff were hired for electrical welding. The employees raised concerns to
management. OSHA complaints were made,
but ineffectively.
The State felt Newton knew about the problems and tried to
fix them. Surely it wasn’t in Newton’s interest
to fire welders without good reason, it presumed. Most likely Newton had fired them for poor
performance, as Newton asserted. Maybe the
logic made sense to some.
Mostly, though, the determination letters present plausible explanations
supporting the employers. My letter
did that pretty effectively: I was rude and could not or would not do my job. True or not.
Raymond
Gomez’s hours were cut not because he complained about being short-paid but
because of a reorganization. Marvin
Gilbert was not really fired by his security company employer because he
called the fire department about a possible violation. He was fired at the request of the security
company’s client who didn’t appreciate the call.
When a decision is made against us, our whistleblower status
is thrown into doubt. The Labor
Commissioner’s office determined I wasn’t one because I lacked a good faith
belief that I was disclosing violations.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court ruled that Joell
Schigur was no whistleblower since her bosses knew about the potential violation. A jury decided that Jason
Blasdell, a former SpaceX employee, never had any reasonably-based suspicion
that SpaceX violated a law. The State
Bar of California won over its former executive director Joe
Dunn. He failed to specify which
laws had been violated, so he was never a whistleblower, either. Natasha
Henderson’s disclosure of suspected corruption by the Flint (MI) mayor didn’t
make her a whistleblower because she was acting as a city employee. Schigur was demoted, and the other three were
fired.
We can spend years on our whistleblower projects. They come to define a big chunk of our
lives. Then it ends not just in defeat
but in denial that we ever were what we supposed.
After the first few months following my termination, I did
not talk much about my whistleblowing. Except
for family, most people who remembered my claim at all probably figured I had
moved on. They were not aware how stuck
on it I was. I was embarrassed by my
obsession.
The violations we disclose are often very technical. Only someone with the right background and
access to relevant documents can figure if we are correct in our claims. It’s even more difficult for others to evaluate
why we were fired or demoted. They rely
on authorities to investigate and decide.
But authorities rule against most of us. Then, on what basis can we still claim our
allegations were true and we were retaliated against? On what basis can we claim we were
whistleblowers at all?
At least publicly, we must eventually admit our project is
ended. Our dream of a whistleblower’s
victory is dead. We follow a different grieving
course from those who
grieve the death of a loved one. Our
loss is not as great; that is clear. Our
time of denial, anger, and bargaining is long past. After investing years into our project,
deflation and maybe depression may follow.
But acceptance is difficult, at least for me now.
I can accept that my whistleblower complaint is dead. There’s no forum where I can press it
further. Accepting the world revealed by
my project, though, I cannot accept. Not
that nonprofits generally depend on deceit and shading the facts of their
performance. Not that government
agencies chartered with managing nonprofit contracts willfully abandon their
responsibilities. Not that we are unable
to rely on auditors and oversight agencies to find and correct misbehavior. Not that the premise of social cooperation and
support falls so far short.
Some big-name whistleblowers persist. They do not accept. They call out continuing wrongs. People like Daniel
Ellsberg, Edward
Snowden, and Chelsea
Manning earned a platform, and they use it.
Small-time folks like me and millions of others have no such
platform. Each time we object, we start
again from the beginning.
Let us do that.
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