Imagine going to work for a company where you discover that something unethical or even illegal is occurring. What would you do? Would you simply quit and walk away, or would you tell your boss or perhaps the president of the company? Would you even consider going outside the firm and contacting a governmental agency about the behavior? These are difficult questions to answer until you’re faced with such a situation. However, circumstances like this do occur, and recently the government has started handing down stiff penalties for companies who retaliate against those who call attention to unethical and illegal business practices. In 2017, the largest award ever handed out to an individual through the whistle-blowing program at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) amounted to $5.4 million. The unnamed manager who won the award worked for Wells Fargo, a major banking and financial services company based in San Francisco. He had contacted a bank ethics hotline and notified his superiors that he suspected fraudulent business practices were being conducted at the company. At present, it has not been made public whether the concern this employee had was connected to the scandal affecting the company when hundreds of thousands of bank accounts and credit card accounts were set up on behalf of customers without their knowledge or consent. Other employees had also apparently tried to notify corporate executives, and there may have been retaliation against some of those associates as well. In all, nearly two million fraudulent accounts were created because employees throughout the company were under pressure to reach certain sales goals. In other words, thousands of employees knowingly created false accounts in order to achieve these sales targets. The new president, Timothy Sloan, has acknowledged that terminations of a few employees may have been motivated by retaliation for speaking out. Sloan replaced John Stumpf, who left the company under pressure from the board after the scandal broke. The employee who won the $5.4 million award unfortunately had to wait six years for the judgment because OSHA has a backlog of similar cases. Also, the complexity of this particular case delayed the ruling because investigators had to determine if the unnamed manager was actually terminated for reporting the unethical business practices and not for some other reason. Still, the manager won a record award, and it has been ruled that Wells Fargo must rehire him. Currently, there is no word on whether he has accepted a position at the company.66 Employees who engage in whistle-blowing against current or former employers are protected by OSHA. Each year, the agency investigates over 3,000 claims filed by whistleblowers, and with awards like this one for a Wells Fargo employee, companies have taken notice. Firms must be very careful that they are not retaliating or discriminating against any employee who goes through the proper channels of notifying corporate executives or OSHA itself. Depending on the nature of the situation, an employee has 30 to 180 days to file a complaint with OSHA if he or she feels that retaliation or discrimination has occurred after blowing the whistle. 67 This is important because often whistle-blowers are unable to find employment in the same industry: Potential employers may be reluctant to hire a whistle-blower.

1. How important are whistle-blowing laws for protecting an employee who feels that something is not right? Should these laws even exist? Why or why not?

2. If you noticed that your current employer is doing something unethical or illegal, what steps would you take?

3. If you were looking to hire a highly qualified candidate, but you discovered that he or she has blown the whistle at three previous employers, would you still hire this person? Why or why not?