• Legal

It All Starts With An “Incident” At Work…

  • Written By: The Signals Network

It all starts with an “incident” at work. You witnessed wrongdoing or discovered it after the fact. It can be fraud, unlawful discrimination, product defects . . . and you know you have to do something. What can you do?

It can be useful to get a consensus from your family and those close to you on how to move forward so they understand how they will be impacted by your speaking out.”

Erika Cheung, Theranos whistleblower

1. Make a personal assessment

Use the Personal Assessment template

  • What are my goals?
  • Am I ready for a long process?
  • What is my level of risk tolerance?
  • Will I be okay if the disclosure does not have the impact I hoped for?
  • What is my emotional support system?
  • Where will I find the right lawyer?
  • Should I try to find another job?
  • What’s my financial situation?
  • Am I staying anonymous or going public?

2. Understand your options

Learn about the Whistleblowing Options Overview

  • What’s the nature of the incident?
  • Does it break a law? A government regulation? A company policy? Shareholders’ disclosure requirements?
  • Do you know of similar incidents in other companies? Any lessons learned? Who were the lawyers of the employees who disclosed those incidents?

3. Talk to the right lawyer and ally 

See Working with Lawyers

  • The nature of the incident will guide you to the right lawyer. Think about how you would describe the incident using legal wording. Is it a labor discrimination issue? Did the company defraud a customer or a business partner? Is there a health hazard being covered up? Different lawyers have different specialties.
  • Is there a non-profit organization that has experience working with whistleblowers on this particular issue? Does a union advocate on this issue currently?

RELEVANT LINKS

Disclaimer

The Signals Network does not request, encourage or counsel potential whistleblowers to act unlawfully. This section covers some key information to be aware of based on the experience of other whistleblowers who have been through this before and the people who helped them. This section doesn’t offer legal advice, and potential whistleblowers are encouraged to consult with counsel about their particular situation.

Statement of transparency

This entire project is worthless if the tech workers who come to it cannot trust where the information is from, who is behind its creation, and who manages the site. For that reason, I have identified every organization and individual who has been instrumental in its development.

The time and resources required to put together the Handbook were funded by Omidyar Network. This is a wholly independent project owned and managed by me. No identifying data will ever be collected or shared about who accesses this site — with anyone. That said, I do NOT advise accessing this from a company device. Your employer can, and will likely, track visits to a resource like this Handbook. 

You can find a list of the data WordPress automatically collects about site visits here.

 

— Ifeoma Ozoma, Founder of Earthseed, Creator of the Tech Worker Handbook