For the second year in a row, New York has passed new legislation expanding protection for whistleblowers, likely in response to the prevalence of both whistleblowing and retaliation in the era of COVID-19. Until these amendments, whistleblowers enjoyed relatively scant protection under New York state laws, and relied primarily on the panoply of federal laws protecting whistleblowers from retaliation. But the combined 2020 and 2021 amendments to the New York Whistleblower Law (New York Labor Law Section 740 et seq.) improve protections for New York whistleblowers in a number of ways, including by: protecting a wider array of workers, broadening the scope of “protected activity,” expanding the definition of a prohibited retaliatory action, lengthening the statute of limitations, and requiring employers to notify employees of their whistleblower protections. These amendments have important implications for both employees and employers.
Before the recent amendments to New York Labor Law Sections 740 and 741, healthcare workers who blew the whistle on their employers in New York were only protected from retaliation if they complained about an actual violation of the law and that violation presented a “substantial and specific danger to the public health and safety,” “health care fraud,” or “improper quality of patient care.” An employee complaining of a wide range of illegal activities that did not directly affect public...
ACT leader David Seymour's claims that doctors are erroneously certifying people unfit for work are being labelled as "political rhetoric" by the president of the Royal College of GPs. ACT wanted ...