Report: Whistle-Blower Protection Law Toothless

A new report backs up contentions that a law protecting federal whistle-blowers is not working. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new report backs up contentions that a law protecting federal
whistle-blowers is not working. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Lester Graham reports:


The organization, PEER, Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, is calling the 15-year-old Whistle-blower Protection Act a
“failure.” The law is supposed to protect government workers who expose misdeeds. PEER
says over the years the Act has faced several challenges and now
complaints filed face long delays. Jeff Ruch is PEER’s Executive Director.


“When employees are reporting wrongdoing, nothing’s happening to
their reports. It’s like dialing 911 and being put on hold.”


The U.S. Office of Special Counsel handles the whistle-blower cases,
but a Congressional report found there’s a huge backlog. The office blames
it on staff shortages. But the report says the Office of Special Counsel has
no real strategy to reduce that backlog of cases. The Special Counsel did
recently reduce some of the backlog… by simply dismissing the cases. The
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has cried ‘foul.’


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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