Today’s modern workplace is riddled with wrongdoing for men and women alike.l From sexual harassment claims and pay discrepancies to other forms of descrimination and wrongdoing, no one can deny that there really are problems that exist that need remedied. Unfortunately, all of our many problems aren’t easy to fix. Fortunately, however, law firms exist to help individuals and their families navigate through any harassment, discrimination, and other wrongdoing they may have suffered from.
Just how common is wrongdoing in the workforce, though? Well, in 2011, about 45 percent of employees in the U.S. claimed that they had witnessed some sort of wrongdoing in the workplace. However, it’s not uncommon for little action to be taken in the event of witnessing workplace wrongdoing. In fact, more times than not, people choose not to report workplace wrongdoing because they fear retaliation, and rightly so. Many who do report wrongdoing do in fact experience some sort of retaliation for their actions, according to a National Business Ethics Survey. Fortunately, new policies are being introduced to protect employees from retaliation, like the whistleblower policy. This policy is specially designed to protect employees who choose to speak out against wrongdoings in the workplace.
Just what are some of the most common workplace wrongdoings that would benefit from a whistleblower policy, though? Sexual harassment is a big one because of how often it occurs. According to a 2015 survey, nearly one in three women between 18 and 34 years of age have experienced sexual harassment at work, and in 2014, there were an alarming 10,364 sexual harassment lawsuits filed, according to the Equal Opportunity Commission. And when you consider that nearly half of the U.S. labor force is comprised of women, 46 percent to be exact, wrongdoings like sexual harassment in the workplace need whistleblower laws like the whistleblower policy in place to protect women.
Age discrimination and disability discrimination are two other common wrongdoings in the workplace. For example, there have been reports of employers refusing to hire elderly people, and people with disabilities tend to deal with discrimination in and out of the workplace on a regular basis. It’s because of all this discrimination that we need better employment law policies like the whistleblower policy.
