The HR Toolkit: An Indispensable Resource for Being a Credible Activist by Denise A. Romano
Please visit my Workplace Credible Activist Group on LinkedIN, as well.
Aligning with business and organizational goals does NOT include engaging in or turning a blind eye to unlawful and/or unethical actions.
Do check out my book, The HR Toolkit: An Indispensible Resource for Being a Credible Activist – as it can help you, too!
Here is a letter you may send to your President, Congresspeople and State Congresspeople, Governor, Attorney General, State or City Inspector General, State Labor Department, HR professionals and Leaders at your job, union leaders, clergypersons, and anyone else you can think of:
There is an epidemic of violations of public safety, fraud, and corruption laws that are directly related to labor law violations in government entities and US corporations. Despite this epidemic – Ethics Commissions, AGs & IGs are unresponsive to labor violation complaints in workplaces and government, even when proof is submitted, tax dollars are misused, and there are rampant ethics, safety, and other compliance violations. The EEOC, OSHA, and State Divisions of Human Rights are underfunded and understaffed, thus their responses to these complaints are almost always delayed and insufficient.
Given that all government employees are required to report legal and ethical noncompliance, mandatory imparital investigations must be implemented without exception and accompanied by absolute prevention of unlawful retaliation against complaining employees. There must be a freeze on any termination of any complaining employee while a sound, impartial, unbiased and thorough investigation is completed, and even afterwards, retaliation against complainants must be prevented.
Please Sign this Petition @change : Demand Legal Compliance in US Workplaces http://chn.ge/bO31L8
Violations of EEO, OSHA, public safety, retaliaiton protections, whistleblower protections, ADA, union-protections and fraud/corruption prevention laws must be classified as serious crimes that result in prosecution. There is extremely insufficient protection for employees who use apropriate channels to report noncompliance in both government and corporate workplaces.
Currently, legal compliance with US labor laws is essentially optional for corporate and government workplaces. Only employees who can afford lawyers have a chance of recourse. Most lawyers will not take cases on contingency, even if complaining employees can prove employer noncompliance with labor and other laws. When there is rare justice, it comes years later – often after unlawful termination and great damage to health, families, and finances.
Most legitimate employee complaints are dismissed by noncompliant employers who unlawfully retaliate against these employees, terminate their employment and health coverage and pay them a small sum for which they are desperate and on which they are taxed. This money almost always comes with a gag order, the dismissal of the complaint with government authorities so there is never an investigation, and the continued employment of those guity of serial noncompliance and other violations of law, which remain unremediated.
Many General Counsel attorneys falsely believe their duty is to protect the corporation by any means instead of ensuring legal compliance and remediating noncompliance according to non-retaliation laws. GCs who knowingly cover up unlawful practices in corporations and government entities must be addressed by the criminal justice system and BAR associations given the enormous financial fraud perpetrated upon taxpayers and shareholders when significant funds are used to unlawfully retaliate against employees who exercise their rights to complain about noncompliance. When this occurs in government entities, it is fraudulent misuse of taxpayer money.
These crimes are epidemic and do require deterrence in the form of large fines, improved processes for complaining employees, and guaranteed sound impartial investigations into unlawful practices, even when there are settlements with complaining employees. Gag orders need to be made unlawful, regardless of settlements with employees.
Sign up to see how your elected officials vote on various issues: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/
Thank you,
Denise A. Romano, MA, EdM
Corporate Governance Expert, Author, and Proud Whistleblower
June 21st, 2010 at 10:57 am
Can you acknowledge that sometimes the ‘boss’ can become the victim of slander by an employee through false and malicious statements?
Can you acknowledge that many times, the alleged ‘victim’ is not really a victim at all, but is looking for an easy pay-out from a large corporation or municipality. If you have been in the workplace for any length of time, you know this is true…..
I wish you would acknowledge that sometimes the victim creates their own ‘hostile environment’ and then wants to
deny responsibility and blame others through bogus lawsuits.
And please remind those ‘victims’ who, when asked to complete their duties/assignments/work load, instead make false accusations against their boss, that they are making matters worse, not better, for employees everywhere.
And what can be done when a character assassination is perpetrated against a boss who is innocent? It is not a good thing to just be able to open one’s mouth to say false things.
One may eventually be vindicated, but damage has been done….
Remember, the ‘victim’ may simply be a poor and irresponsible worker, and one should be able to deal with them accordingly and without retribution!
Finally, what can be done about such an employee?
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:42 am
I can acknowledge that lying at work does happen, which is why every workplace needs to have an investigation policy and a sound investigative process involving qualified, ethical, third- party investigators if it’s too small and workplace relationships are too close for a sound investigation to take place.
ANYONE can become the victim of slander or false and malicious statements.
There is one thing I will NOT acknoweldge – and that is your entirely false idea that anyone gets an “easy pay out” from a large corporation or municipality based on false allegations. That does not happen and your idea that it does happen is very misguided. There are no pay-outs when there is no wrong-doing. It is hard enough for victims of unlawful workplace practices to have their cases taken seriously even with piles of evidence. If a claim is baseless, there will be no payout. Your comments are disturbing not only because you are putting forth completely false anti-compliance propaganda, but you are serving as an apologist for unethical and unlawful workplace practices and your statements are very clearly anti-compliance and anti-employee.
Also, persons who are victims of unalwful workplace practices do not “create their own hostile environment” – I would like to know what you mean by this. It sounds like you are viewing a situation through the lens of bias and without a clear understanding of what a hostile environment is, what contributes to it, and just how complex this can be in terms of organizational psychology, group dynamics, conflict resolution, and a refusal to share organizational power or apply policies consistently to all employees.
It is very rare that a “bogus” lawsuit makes it anywhere near a courtroom when we’re talking about employment issues. Most American employees cannot afford an attorney for any kind of complaint process, let alone a lawsuit. The very small percentage of those Americans who can afford such a thing, generally do not even need to work. So, again, you are putting forth completely false anti-employee propaganda that is patently untrue.
An employee cannot create a hostile work environment for him or herself. A hostile work environment by definition is defined by the behavior of others in the organization and by the inconsistent application of policies to that employee based on bias, disparate treatment, retaliation, harassment, discrimination, and bullying.
You seem angry about a specific situation, and you seem to be applying your anger about such a situation to all issues of harassment/discrimination/retaliation/unethical and unlawful workplace practices. I hope you will be able to learn more about what all of these terms and issues mean before you continue to think in this way that is lacking in critical reasoning skills.
All workplaces are systems, even if there are employees, whom you allege, make false accusations against their bosses in response to being told to complete their work, it needs to be examined what is wrong here. Certainly there are people who do not belong in the workplace if they are abusive to others, slander others, and make false accusations against others – unless they can completely remediate these behaviors. When someone is suspected of having done this, we have to investigate soundly to determine what is true, which is not always easy.
You seem very certain of what is true, and I ask you how that is. What kind of investigation yielded your certainty and your anti-employee anger? And why are you not just as angry about employees and bosses who do this to other employees? There are many employees who have been slandered at work, who have falsely accused of things (including violence), and who have been subjected to egregious amounts of hostility and disparate treatment who are then fired after having complained while those who engaged in these behaviors remain employed, continue to get raises and promotions, and continue to enjoy their benefits from those corporations and municipalities you mention.
What you’re describing is a very rare if not non-existent occurence, yet you put it forth as though it is somehow common or even a significant portion of what goes on in the American workplace, and you are mistaken.
Yes, damage is done by all dishonesty and false accusations in workplaces. You are very focused on this happening to innocent people who are bosses. Of course it is not a good thing to be able to open one’s mouth to say false things, and I have never and will never support such an idea. Again, you seem angry about a specific situation which you seem to think is common, and it just is not.
However, what IS common is the opposite of what you describe: employees who are mistreated via unethical and unlawful workplace practices who are then further harassed and retaliated against after they do exercise their right to complain. We have an epidemic of workplace leaders and corporate lawyers who choose to abandon their compliance responsibilities and protect and retain those who have been proven to harass, slander, falsely accuse, discriminate against, and otherwise torment innocent employees who have done nothing to invite or deserve such behavior.
You may be surprised to learn that even when another employee is proven to have done those things mentioned above (either through email or other evidence or through witness statements), that the innocent employee accuser is often STILL terminated and the perpetrators of such unlawful behavior are retained, rewarded, and celebrated.
There is an enormous difference between addressing subpar performance and allowing an employee to be subjected to unlawful treatment. If someone is a poor and irresponsible worker, you still need to discover why that is by asking several questions (this also answers your last question):
1. How did this employee wind up in this position in this organization?
2. Did the organization hire the wrong person by not using a sound hiring process?
3. Is there a health issue that is hampering performance?
4. Is there an organizational issue that is hampering excellent performance?
5. Is the supervisor a well-trained supervisor? Is the supervisor abusive? Have there been complaints about the supervisor?
6. What does the employee say is hampering excellent performance and can that be remediated?
7. What do other employees say about the workplace in general?
My book offers a more comprehensive answer to your last question, but it is clear to me that you are not looking at these very important issues from a systems-approach vantage point, which needs to be done. It is very very rarely as simple as “this is a bad employee and everything else is working fine”. A workplace is a system and everyone and everything affects everyone and everything else.
If you have even one abusive supervisor and you allow that to continue, your entire operation will be negatively affected. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will happen. The BP disaster didn’t just happen one day. It is the result of thousands of small very bad decisions that ignored important information and feedback from employees in the entire workplace system and from past OSHA fines and citations.
When you as a leader choose to ignore what you do not want to deal with or do not want to believe, you will have a disaster on your hands at some point.
I am still very disturbed by your false idea that bogus lawsuits happen frequently just for a payout. Anyone who has ever made a formal complaint or who has gone through the experience of having been a whistleblower will tell you that it was a harrowing and stressful experience. You’ve got a very unrealistic idea that getting a “payout” based on false allegations is easy when that just is not true. It’s hard enough for employees to get a complaint number from the EEOC when they have stacks of evidence because the EEOC and state human rights divisions are woefully underfunded and understaffed.
I hope you will learn more about the statistics on these issues and question your false assumptions about these matters.
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December 31st, 2011 at 12:29 pm
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January 20th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
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