The Employer Handbook BlogArticles Posted in Whistleblowing
Have you ever watched The Dropout on Hulu? It’s about the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her company, Can you fire an employee for complaining that the company violated state/local COVID-19 orders?
Often, readers of the blog will email me recent blogworthy HR news.
Occasionally, an attorney will send me a favorable decision that s/he obtained for a client on an employment law topic that may interest readers of this blog. Today, that’s what I’ve got for you — a case involving some healthcare workers who claimed that their former employer fired them for complaining that the company was not following state and local COVID-19 mandates. Continue reading
The National Labor Relations Board ain’t got nothin’ on NJ when it comes to COVID-19 whistleblowers
Image Credit EpicTop10.com (Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC By 2.0))
If, during this pandemic, you do business in a state with a robust whistleblower law, keep reading.
Philly is the first city to have that COVID-19 anti-retaliation whistleblower jawn.
De Beyond My Ken – Trabajo propio, CC BY-SA 4.0, Enlace
And by ‘jawn,’ I mean just about anything. But here, specifically, Philadelphia has a new anti-retaliation whistleblower law. Continue reading
There’s a new COVID-19 whistleblower bill in Congress now. And it’s got real teeth! 😬
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
On Monday, Representatives Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) introduced the COVID-19 Whistleblower Protection Act. It is part of a larger piece of legislation called the “Coronavirus Oversight and Recovery Ethics Act of 2020” or the “CORE Act.” You can view a copy of the CORE Act here. Continue reading
A lawyer is the plaintiff in a new COVID-19 wrongful discharge lawsuit
I’m glad that you folks enjoyed yesterday’s recipe post. Continue reading
You think COVID-19 discrimination claims are bad? “Hold my drink,” says the whistleblower.
Image by Alexey Hulsov from Pixabay
In the past several days, many states have issued stay-at-home orders. Here is a list of them from CNN.
These orders vary, and no one is literally locked in their homes. But, the gist is that affected citizens should stay at home unless they need to venture out to get food, obtain medicine, or work for employers that provide essential services. New Jersey is one of these states — shocking, I know — that has issued a stay-at-home order.
So, what would happen if your local business forced an NJ resident to come to work against the individual’s wishes?
Five employment cases blowing up my DropBox and Pocket
You know, being a client of the Blogger King has its perks. (That’s me. I’m the Blogger King). When I’m not litigating and counseling on employment-related issues, I’m taking blog post requests and emailing weekly updates of HR goodies that don’t make it onto the blog.
But, with my DropBox and Pocket chock full of recent cases, I’ll summarize the recent biggies.
NJ Supreme Court: Whistleblower law protects watchdog employees too
Can a person whose job is to ensure that the company follows a particular standard of care; i.e., a watchdog employee, bring an action against the company under New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), the state’s whistleblower law?
In case you missed it, earlier this month, the New Jersey Supreme Court answered this question (here) with a resounding yes! The logic is that CEPA is a very broad, remedial statute, and there is nothing in the letter of the law that carves away protections for watchdog employees. Therefore, when an employee “blows the whistle” on an unlawful (or what he/she reasonably believes is an unlawful) employer activity, that employee may have a claim under CEPA — even if the whistleblower is employed as, well, a whistleblower.
Image Credit: By Metal_whistle.jpg: Markus Schweissderivative work: MichaelFrey (Metal_whistle.jpg) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Pennsylvania nears a game-changing whistleblower-law amendment
Can you blow my whistle baby, whistle baby.
Let me know.
Girl I’m gonna show you how to do it.
And we start real slow.
You just put your lips together.
And you come real close.
Can you blow my whistle baby, whistle baby?
Here we go.
Concerned with the limited scope of Pennsylvania’s Whistleblower Law, the existential activist Flo Rida wrote the 2012 hit Whistle to raise awareness and trigger a potentially huge change in the law.
{Editor’s Note: No he didn’t. Not at all.}