Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of the Solicitor identified a problem within their own workforce: a sizable share said they didn’t feel safe reporting colleagues for alleged offenses.
The responses from employees of the DOL office that helps to protect workers from employer retaliation when reporting violations of law, which came in a survey last year, “caught my attention,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said in a recent email to staff in which she tried to assuage their concerns.
One in four employees at regional offices said they weren’t comfortable reporting suspected violations without fear of reprisal, according to Nanda’s email, a copy of which Bloomberg Law obtained.
“I wish to assure you combatting whistleblower retaliation and discriminatory conduct are both our external, and internal priorities,” Nanda wrote in the Oct. 25 message to all solicitor’s office employees, using boldface to highlight that point. “In order to effectively work on behalf of others, we must protect one another.”
The responses came in the 2020 installment of the federal government’s annual employee survey. When asked if they felt “comfortable disclosing suspected violations of any law, rule, or regulations without fear of reprisal, 17.4% of national office employees, and 24.5% of regional office employees answered in the negative,” Nanda added,...
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