Under California law, employers are prohibited from making, adopting, or enforcing policies that prevent an employee from disclosing violations of a state or federal statute, or a violation or noncompliance with a local, state, or federal regulation to, among others, a government or law enforcement agency. The law also prohibits employers from retaliating against an employee who makes such a disclosure.Continue Reading CA Labor Commissioner Issues New Whistleblower Notice
Beware. Routine criticisms of job performance when directed to employees engaged in a caring profession, may subject you to retaliation and whistleblower claims.
So you hire an employee, call her a brick layer. She is a horrible brick layer. You get in constant arguments with her concerning the quality of her brick laying. You say that the bricks must be square and aligned and she says, no they look better if they are crooked, uneven and “rustic.” Firing that employee for discharging her duties as a brick layer in a way the employer finds unacceptable is, in almost all cases, a low risk decision. Subjective dislike of an employee’s work performance is a time honored and well recognized “legitimate nondiscriminatory, nonretaliatory,” reason for termination.
Continue Reading Have You Ever Disagreed With An Employee About How They Should Do Their Work?
The year-end holidays tend to be a time when employers and employees are either winding down for the year or making one last big push to close the year strongly. California employers should make time this week, though, to ensure they are ready for the new laws which will take effect in California this Friday
Employers may begin to see an increase in whistleblower litigation.
Effective January 1, 2014, the Legislature, through Senate Bill 496, amended Section 1102.5, California’s “whistleblower protection” statute. We covered this in our “year in review” seminar, but given the scope of the changes in the law, we wanted to make sure to get the word
Section 1514A of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act states that:
“No [public] company . . . , or any officer, employee, contractor, subcontractor, or agent of such company, may discharge, demote, suspend, threaten, harass, or in any other manner discriminate against an employee in the terms and conditions of employment because of [whistleblowing or other protected activity].”
