Petitions To Sign

1. Please Sign this Petition @change : Demand Legal Compliance in US Workplaces http://chn.ge/bO31L8 (text below)

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.

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.

Violations of EEO, OSHA, public safety, retaliation 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 retaliatory unlawful termination and great damage to health, families, and finances.

Most legitimate employee complaints are dismissed by noncompliant employers and/or unions 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 intentional fraudulent misuse of taxpayer money; it is also a frequent occurence.

Furthermore, those who contribute to and/or enable unlawful retaliation by not reporting it need to be held accountable as well – as they often benefit personally. Any of us who have been lucky enough to be able to afford legal counsel must help those who have not and must improve our current system.

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.

Finally, tax incentives for businesses that move American jobs overseas, where there are fewer labor protections is unacceptable and must stop.

Labor rights are human rights!

Thank you,

Denise A. Romano, MA, EdM

Follow this issue on Twitter (twitter.com/@deniseromano) and on Change.org

2. An Open Letter (& PETITION) from Community of #Whistleblowers to Atty Gen Holder http://t.co/JFPsARJ  | http://goo.gl/7R7xf

Remain updated on how your elected officials vote on Labor and other issues: Sign up to see how your elected officials vote on various issues: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/ Make sure you tell them you want workers’ rights to be protected and improved – not gutted by the GOP who are destroying workers’ rights because they accept large campaign donations from the Koch Brothers and other corporations.