Former OSHA employee claims WPP double standards

An investigator with the US government’s Whistleblower Protection Programme (WPP) claims he has been fired – for whistleblowing.
Darrell Whitman says the agency failed to defend employees who had blown the whistle on their companies’ alleged illegal activities and safety failings.

The employees whose cases Whitman raised with the agency included a flight service specialist with Lockheed Martin who was dismissed after complaining he was under pressure to give weather advice to pilots in states with which he was unfamiliar, and a manager with Em Lab P&K, an air quality testing company, fired after reporting that its asbestos investigations were unreliable.
Whitman said he recommended that the two men should be rehired with back pay but his superiors rejected his findings.

He protested: “When you simply dismiss a case because you don’t like it or don’t want to stand up to business, you are basically sending a message to other whistleblowers, ‘Don’t file a complaint because we’re not going to take it seriously’.

“It is so incredibly absurd that we have placed our faith in these people who have no intention of following through to protect the public.”

Whitman put his concerns to the media after exhausting internal channels for complaints. He had contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which oversees the Whistleblower Protection Programme, and Thomas Perez, the US secretary of labour.

His termination letter said he had been sacked for six reasons, including “lack of candour during an investigatory meeting” and “unauthorised release of government documents”.

OSHA nevertheless acknowledged there were problems with the whistleblowing procedures but these were being remedied.

Whitman is continuing his complaint by appealing to the Office of Special Counsel, a government body that protects federal employees from retaliation for whistleblowing.

If he succeeds he could receive a settlement from OSHA or financial reinstatement.