The Punishment for Whistleblowing

The Punishment for Whistleblowing

News reports on whistleblowers tend to describe three kinds of cases: (a) False Claims Act suits, which focus on the accused organization’s overcharging the government and care little about the whistleblower except as a source of evidence; (b) complaints involving private companies, which are usually settled out of court to limit the availability of information; and (c) disclosures by employees who accuse public agencies or employees of wrongdoing.   

The retaliations against the whistleblower described in these reports come in waves.  First come the usual informal[1] organizational actions – such as different forms of ostracism and modifications of the protester’s job.   Examples from articles over the past month or so:

Joel Allen – mental health was questioned by his boss in a large setting

Steven Babyak – sales region reduced but quota increased

Joann Brown – verbal abuse, exclusion from leadership training event,

Sabrina Burton – lost university grant and committee seats, physically threatened.

April Grundfor – assigned to work area with no private phone access, no adequate computers/printers, denied access to patient medical records.

Dale Klein – stripped of hospital duties.

Kim Martin – stripped of supervisory responsibility.

Walter Tamosaitis – moved to basement office with no meaningful work for 15 months.

Barbara Temeck ­– office moved to basement

Pamela Treadwell – threatened with jail time for the misdeed she disclosed.

Richard Trusz – limited exposure to clients, reduced responsibilities,

Occasionally, informal actions assume extreme forms:

Kim Martin – cardboard rats place on her desk.

Joe Crystal – a dead rat placed on his patrol car windshield.

Then come formal actions that typically involve official documentation:

Jonathan Blaylock – challenged on sick time & hours worked, unusual discipline for alleged mistakes, performance improvement plan.

Joann Brown – critical performance review, vague & impossible performance improvement plan (fairly common retaliations; also see: April Grundfor)

Dale Klein – lost patient contact and hospital privileges; the VA closed his pain management clinic

Joseph Lovelace – coded language in performance appraisal that made promotion impossible

David Scrip – disciplined for trivial infractions.

Jerry Speziale – denied security credentials, work vehicle taken away, denied medical leave benefits for terminally ill wife.

Barbara Temeck ­– demoted, clinical privileges withdrawn.

Frank Timek – suspension without pay, job changed.

The final formal action is termination, which leads to some sort of complaint by the whistleblower.  The accused organization sometimes responds with its own explanations that the whistleblower without disproving his allegations.  These false criticisms will be used to fight the whistleblower’s application for unemployment benefits and will complicate his personal relations and his search for a new job.

Joel Allen – vandalism, threatened other employees, made false allegations.

Svetlana Blackburn – ongoing performance problems (a common accusation).

Jason Blasdell – disruptive.

Sabrina Burton – behaved unprofessionally, disrespectful, harassing and intimidating behavior (another common complaint).

Glen Brooks – lying.

Johnny Burris – complaints from customers.

John Connors – violated media policy.

Stephen Furst – obscene photos on his computer.

Woody Hildebrandt – stole from school.

Kuaahtemoc Rodriguez – violated privacy policy.

Walter Tamosaitis – lack of work (another common explanation; for example, Tracy Woodward).

Robert Trojan – boss sent email to broad list suggesting he’d been fired for cause

Even after termination, the organization may instigate further retaliations against the whistleblower.  It may informally discourage other organizations from hiring the whistleblower, or it may take more aggressive actions against him:

Craig Price – employer held him responsible for $14,000 customer loss, comment on the financial industry’s U5 record (the U5 record comment is a common technique of banks: Jeremy received one after being fired by Wells Fargo; Johnny Burris also was hit by comments that kept him from being hired at other financial firms).

Nick Ramler – sued by the organization; Thomas Guilfole was also sued by his former employer after his whistleblower complaint was dismissed.

The combined effects of these retaliations can make whistleblowers regret that they ever made their disclosures:

Lisa Magin – “It has been hell”, almost lost her home, no medical insurance.

Research[2] on the experiences of whistleblowers has found similar types of retaliations across broader populations.  My own experience at HomeFirst, though far less harsh than that of most whistleblowers, included many of the same elements: the ostracism, exclusion from meetings, reduction in responsibilities, reprimands for actions that might not have earned reprimands for others, termination without notice, and later the threat of a lawsuit if I continued to complain about the company’s behavior or if I contacted anyone at the company.

Just as the misdeeds disclosed by whistleblowers are common in corporations, these retaliations resemble actions that organizations regularly take against employees they no longer appreciate and would like to see leave, even without whistleblowing as a factor.  Thus, it is no surprise that the organization claims that the whistleblowing did not influence its behavior – the wrongdoing and the behavior toward an unwanted employee are actions the organization takes all the time.

Although the personal pain they cause can be intense, retaliations against whistleblowers are commonplace.  By themselves, they raise no one to an exalted status; they surprise no one.  Likewise, the organization’s disingenuous defense of its attack on an employee who speaks up should surprise no one.  Yet its claim on the loyalty and commitment of employees too often garners sympathy[3].

The decision to blow a whistle changes the game for both parties.  It moves the organizational misdeed from the routine to the noteworthy and actions against the employee from conventional to unlawful (or at least reprehensible). Whistleblowing shifts the expression of an employee’s displeasure from simply leaving a nasty situation to malicious behavior that may be protected by law.

The punishment dealt to the whistleblower provides a shortcut for each side: the tedious dickering over relations and behavior that should be improved is exchanged for a high cost transaction in which both sides claim, without convincing justification, to take the higher ethical ground.

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[1] The distinction between informal and formal control systems is discussed in Campbell, Jamie-Lee and Anja S. Goritz. “Culture Corrupts! A Qualitative Study of Organizational Culture in Corrupt Organizations.” Journal of Business Ethics 120 (2014): 291–311

[2] For example, Devine, Tom and Tarek F. Maassarani. The Corporate Whistleblower’s Survival Guide. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 2011.  “12 Most Common retaliation Tactics.” Forbes.  See also my earlier post.

[3] For example, Schrag, Brian.  “The Moral Significance of Employee Loyalty.” 11.1 (January 2001): 41-66; and Goldsmith, Marshall. “How to Increase Employee Commitment.” Harvard Business Review. January 28, 2008