Not all whistleblowing is as dramatic as the movies might have us believe.

Workers across the country are whistleblowing every day through comments made in grievances, resignation letters, e-mails or in verbal conversations. Some see themselves as whistleblowers and others do not.

It is important for employers to be able to identify an act of whistleblowing because:

• Employees who are dismissed for whistleblowing are automatically deemed to have been unfairly dismissed, irrespective of their length of service;
• Compensation for such an automatic unfair dismissal is unlimited and is not subject to the usual cap on unfair dismissal compensation;
• Workers and employees are also protected from being subject to detriments as a result of whistleblowing.
• Individual directors and employees can be held personally liable for subjecting whistleblowers to detriments.

Employment law classifies whistleblowers as those who make a “protected disclosure”. There are four elements of a protected disclosure:

1. Disclosure of information

The worker must disclose information. Disclosing information goes beyond merely making an allegation. An example of the distinction is given by case law, in relation to the state of a hospital. The worker saying “You are not complying with health and safety requirements” would be an allegation, rather than a disclosure of information. A disclosure of information would be saying something like, “the wards have not been cleaned for the past two weeks. Yesterday,...

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