Sarbanes-Oxley (corporate fraud act)whistleblower complaints have to be processed through OSHA (which is nuts - what does OSHA know about securities law and accounting??). Reasoning was that OSHA investigators are the experts in whistleblower law, so they would be the logical choice to look into the complaints. The process is:
*file whistleblower claim with Dept. of Labor/OSHA - field investigator does initial investigation which is supposed to be completed in 60 days
*if the employer or whistleblower disagrees with the investigator's finding the ruling can be appealed via an DOL/Administrative Law Judge
*if DOL has not made a decision within 180 days the whistleblower can file a discrimination suit in federal court
Not happening - cases are being buried deep. Here are some stats , date range from 7/30/02 - 8/25/04, 295 cases. (I'm trying to get updated stats but it's like pulling teeth) During this time period there were over 300 cases - 233 were actually completed by the DOL (67 were settled or voluntarily withdrawn in initial stage). Of these 233 cases, only 11 cases (5%) were found to have merit and 16 (7%) were dismissed to be filed in federal court. 206 (88%) cases were dismissed either on procedural grounds or for lack of merit. More importantly, of these 233 cases, 225 (97%) were dismissed during the initial investigation stage. This means that if you don't have the money to pony up to get a good attorney for an appeal, your case is thrown out no matter how good it is. I do not believe that 97% of these cases are BS. Whether this is because OSHA just doesn't have the staff/training or there are more sinister reasons (corporate America/Bush Admin doesn't like accountability), this situation is setting us up for another Enron (i.e. Delphi). I am pretty sure the 2004-2005 stats are even worse. SOX has about doubled OSHA's whistleblower caseload, but they were only budgeted an extra $2 million to handle the extra work, and that didn't happen until 2005. In 2003 when they first got the SOX cases their budget was cut, and there was no line item for it in 2004. And, experts clearly said that OSHA's caseload would be doubled when the Act was signed by Bush. THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE SCANDAL.....