Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act

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A report released today by Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reveals that most of the fifteen executive branch departments’ nondisclosure agreement policies violate the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.  The law requires such agreements to contain an explicit statement notifying employees the agreements do not trump an employee’s rights and obligations…

Today the National Whistleblower Center filed an Amicus Curiae brief with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), in the case of Day v. Department of Homeland Security. At issue is whether the new definition of a protected disclosure set forth in the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act will apply to cases pending and/or which arose before that law was passed.
Continue Reading MSPB Urged to Retroactively Apply WEPA

The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) may move through Congress in the coming days, or even hours, and contains many important reforms that will help federal employees. However, both the House (H.R. 3289) and Senate (S. 743) versions still have one provision that, if enacted into law, will significantly harm whistleblowers.
Continue Reading Why Summary Judgment Must be Removed from the WPEA

TAKE ACTION!

The new Congress gives whistleblower advocates an opportunity to make a new start on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (“WPEA”). The National Whistleblowers Center (NWC) today calls on legislators and advocates to get it right this time.  Legal protections for federal employees should be enhanced without any provisions that would take away presently existing rights.  If any poison pills are included in new legislation, federal employees will continue to suffer when they raise concerns about waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

The obituaries over the defeat of the WPEA in the last Congress (S. 372), have taken on an air of nostalgia over how the forces of “good” were defeated by one lone anonymous Senate “hold,” that somehow caused a major landmark whistleblower rights bill for federal employees to be defeated. It is a great political story — if only it was half-true.  In reality, the final, compromised version of S. 372 was the worst and weakest whistleblower protection law approved by the Senate or the House over the past 30 years.  It was fatally flawed and divisive legislation.

A Roll Back of Important Rights

On May 14, 2009 over 290 public interest organizations, including all of the members of the Make if Safe Coalition, wrote an open letter to President Obama and Congress calling for the enactment of nine significant reforms in the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.  Unfortunately, S. 372 failed to include seven of these nine requirements.  Worse, it contained two major cutbacks in current rights.

The May 14th letter stated:

It is crucial that Congress restore and modernize the Whistleblower Protection Act by passing all of the following reforms:

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Continue Reading Whistleblower Protection for Federal Employee — Let’s Get it Right