ZSUN employees:"THE RIGHT THING To Blow the Whistle, Drop the Mask. Insiders who see something rotten occurring in a company or organization have a clear ethical obligation to speak up.
By JEFFREY L. SEGLIN
Insiders who see something rotten occurring in a company or organization have a clear ethical obligation to speak up. But does that obligation include disclosing your identity?
It's easy to find reasons for wanting to remain anonymous. Consider what
happened in the case of Jeffrey Wigand, who repaid Brown &
Williamson Tobacco, for firing him as head of research in 1993 by
spilling some very embarrassing beans, including evidence that the
company's chief executive, Thomas E. Sandefur Jr., who died in 1996,
lied to Congress about what the company knew about tobacco's
addictive properties. Wigand said a firestorm of invective and threats --
both legal and physical -- descended on him and his family.
By coming forward in a very public way, Wigand paved the way for the
first successful litigation against the tobacco companies over the dangers
of smoking. But he did so at a steep personal price. Other potential
whistle-blowers might look at his experience and say, "I'll talk only if I
can keep my name out of it."
That may seem expedient, but it's the wrong way, for both practical and
ethical reasons. In most cases, violent crimes being an obvious exception,
the encouragement of anonymous tipsterism is misguided.
Start with the ethics: If you believe something is wrong and must change,
anonymity should not be a prerequisite for coming forward. "If the fear of
retaliation causes us not to stand up for our principles," said Stephen L.
Carter, a Yale law professor and author of "Integrity" (Basic Books,
1996), "then what kind of principles are they?"
They certainly won't be upheld by a complaint that goes ignored. And
anonymous allegations are easily brushed aside as the work of someone
with ignoble motives, like a disgruntled employee or a competitor.
Wigand's whistle-blowing had the effect it did because people could see
that it came from someone in a position to know, said Terance D.
Miethe, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nevada at Las
Vegas and the author of "Whistle-Blowing at Work" (Westview, 1999).
"The problem with anonymous reporting," he said, "is that usually no
action is taken."
Even advocacy groups set up to protect whistle-blowers, like the
Government Accountability Project in Washington, recognize that the
efficacy of complaints is tied to an identified source. Tom Devine, the
project's legal director, said that he advises whistle-blowers to "stay
anonymous as long as possible" but that, sooner or later, "if you truly
want to make a difference, you're going to have to publicly bear witness
and testify."
Groups like Devine's exist because retaliation does occur. The Merit
System Protection Board, a civil service panel, conducted a 1992 survey
of nearly 1,500 federal employees who had reported what they saw as
misconduct. Twenty-three percent said they had experienced verbal
harassment or intimidation; 1 percent said they had been dismissed.
There is some legal protection for whistle-blowers under federal and
state laws, but it generally applies only to those who report possible
violations of laws to the authorities. If you report to top executives, say,
that your boss is falsely claiming credit for another's work, you're on your
own.
Even with statutory protection against official retaliation, there is nothing
to stop co-workers from making a whistle-blower's life less than
comfortable. After all, no law can make people befriend those who take
a righteous stand.
Moreover, some experts, including Miethe, believe that the laws
themselves are a dismal failure. Unlike most lone employees, companies
can afford to pay lawyers to tie up cases for years.
Patrick J. Gnazzo vice president for business practices at United
Technologies in Hartford, said he believes that companies can benefit
from encouraging, not squashing, whistle-blowers. "In a perfect world, an
employee works for a company that wants to do the right thing, and the
employee is not going to feel uncomfortable bringing things forward," he
said. "The problem is, this isn't a perfect world."
Though some companies try to create an atmosphere in which people
feel comfortable and supported in identifying wrongdoing, the reality is
that behaving ethically can wreak havoc on a life without any guarantee
that wrongs will be righted. That is why those who speak up, despite the
risks, are seen as courageous -- and are believed. And it is why those
who cloak themselves in what Carter calls "a culture of anonymous
complaining" often are not."
More: nytimes.com |
