Everything But The Weed

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Linda Maze, a Wedding photography Gainesville FL in Gainesville Florida

The federal whistleblower laws are here to protect employees from repercussions when they “blow the whistle” on their employer.  This occurs in instances where their employer may have broken the law, violated employees’ rights, or neglected their safety.  In the light of recent events, many people are now wondering if our existing laws provide whistleblowers enough protection.  Several new proposals have arisen that attempt to better protect United Sates’ whistleblowers in industry specific situations.

First, lets look briefly at the history of United Sates Federal Whistleblower protection laws. The Lloyd-La Follette Act of 1912 guaranteed federal employees the right to provide information to Congress, and was the first US law passed to specifically protect whistleblowers.  Many years later, several environmental laws were passed that included whistleblower protection, they were: the Clean Water Act (1972), Safe Drinking Water Act (1974), Solid Waste Disposal Act (1976), Toxic Substances Control Act (1976), Energy Reorganization Act (1978), the Superfund Law (1980), and the Clean Air Act (1990).  Several more employee-centric protection acts soon followed, including: the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (1982), the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act (2002), AIR 21 (2002).  The big chief of whistleblower laws was passed in 2002, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which afforded protection to corporate whistleblowers.

The above may seem like both an extensive and compressive list, but many feel that the protections afforded by these laws are just not adequate.  In the aftermath of BP’s oil leak catastrophe, many public figures are asking for explicit protections for offshore oil workers.  One of the men leading the charge is Louisiana Representative, Charles Melancon.  Rep. Melancon feels that the Gulf Coast region “might not be going through this traumatic episode’’ if the offshore drilling workers knew they would be protected federally.

Consulting with a Louisiana Jones Act Attorney, he explained that while the Jones Act affords some protection to seaman, many workers feel that they will be blackballed by the industry if they bring suit against their employer.  A Louisiana Maritime Attorney put it another way, saying that these men and women fear repercussions when they are injured on the job, imagine what kind of repercussions they fear from speaking out publicly.  

With the death of 11 unfearing workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon, is it finally time for a federal whistleblower law to protect offshore workers?   “We need to hold these companies accountable,’’ Melancon said in a public affirmation.  While many Gulf Coast residents hope that BP is held accountable through lawsuits brought on by Louisiana Jones Act Attorneys on behalf of the victims of this awful tragedy, almost everyone agrees that this event should have been prevented in the first place.

Perhaps the BP tragedy, and the resulting public fallout will finally bring the sweeping change that the public now feels is necessary to protect us from the corporations that have such a drastic impact on our lives.  Only time will tell.