Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Whistling Up the Whistleblower Protection Program


Your construction boss (who happens also to be the owner of the company) often requires more people on the scaffold than it was built to carry. It’s obviously an accident waiting to happen. You’d like to file a protest, but are afraid that you’d lose your job. Sounds familiar? Can you be protected from retaliation?

Retaliation against the whistleblower in the workplace has again come into the spotlight following the recent spate of fatal scaffolding accidents across the country and the announcement this August by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of new measures to upgrade the Whistleblower Protection Program.

"The ability of workers to speak out and exercise their legal rights without fear of retaliation is crucial to many of the legal protections and safeguards that all Americans value," said OSHA assistant secretary Dr. David Michaels in the new release. "The new measures will significantly strengthen OSHA's enforcement of the 21 whistleblower laws that Congress charged OSHA with administering."

You can find the full story here: www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=20394

As a worker, it’s equally important that you’re fully aware of your safety rights at the workplace and that you know what you can do to make it safer for you there. That’s why most responsible companies require programs such as the OSHA 10 hour training and the 30 hour OSHA training.

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