Rights of the Whistleblower - Sherron Watkins — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:07Steve Arbogast had some statistics in
3. 0:09his class yesterday that I visited about
4. 0:12the tactics that those in power will do
5. 0:16and if they can't just fire you outright
6. 0:19if they can't really put you in a
7. 0:22financial strain they will start
8. 0:24spreading rumors and that happened to me
9. 0:25they try to start spreading rumors you
10. 0:30know I think for me they were trying to
11. 0:31say I was a man hater or you know some
12. 0:35it was they would it was sort of a
13. 0:37shotgun approach of trying different
14. 0:38things one of their lawyers was saying
15. 0:42well she's no kook but you know you see
16. 0:46what that means it's kind of like saying
17. 0:47well he's no wife beater but you've
18. 0:49brought it up you know you put that wife
19. 0:51beater word out there so it was all
20. 0:54these things that were still negative
21. 0:57you know trying to make dismiss the
22. 1:00whistle blower with soybeans Oxley act
23. 1:05businesses pushed back about the
24. 1:07whistleblower provisions that regulation
25. 1:11that new law got shoved into the
26. 1:13Department of Labor and they convinced
27. 1:15the Secretary of Labor that if the
28. 1:17whistleblower was not employed by the
29. 1:19publicly traded parent the law did not
30. 1:21provide protections for that employee so
31. 1:25much so that in in a six year period out
32. 1:28of 1,200 cases where people brought up
33. 1:33problems got got fired and they filed a
34. 1:36Sox whistleblower case 841 were
35. 1:40dismissed on the technicality that the
36. 1:41employee was not part was not employed
37. 1:44by the publicly traded parent when Wall
38. 1:47Street collapsed Congress went looking
39. 1:49for Wall Street whistleblowers out of
40. 1:51this 841 and they found one at Citibank
41. 1:54and Lehman Brothers and so they got
42. 1:57really agitated like could we have
43. 1:59prevented the collapses of 2008 had
44. 2:02these folks been listened to in 2005 and
45. 2:052006 instead of being fired and we
46. 2:10didn't even give him any protections so
47. 2:12what happened was dodd-frank dodd-frank
48. 2:17gives a 10 to 30%
49. 2:20on the SEC filings for financial
50. 2:24wrongdoing it is it is really amazing it
51. 2:28got put in place in 2010 and the the
52. 2:33country is becoming a wash in law firms
53. 2:35that have opened up whistleblower
54. 2:37advocacy groups they can get paid now
55. 2:41the whistleblower usually has that loss
56. 2:43of job they're in a financial strain
57. 2:46they don't have an ability to even
58. 2:47didn't even know how to find the right
59. 2:49lawyer well now there's great resources
60. 2:51whistleblower org singular
61. 2:53whistleblowers org plural great books
62. 2:57that are out you know to me I felt such
63. 3:01relief when I had that powers report
64. 3:03that backed up everything I was saying
65. 3:05the loneliness of blowing the whistle is
66. 3:08now you know quickly alleviated when you
67. 3:11have smart sharp lawyers you know that
68. 3:13are now helping you on the idea that
69. 3:15they're going to get paid out of this
70. 3:17bounty program I put a third book up
71. 3:21here called the naked corporation it's
72. 3:23actually like a ten year old book but it
73. 3:26says in this new age and it's got some
74. 3:28additions but with WikiLeaks with the
75. 3:30internet in this new age it says if
76. 3:34you're going to be nekkid you better be
77. 3:36buff but the point being that if
78. 3:39corporations are doing wrong things they
79. 3:41are going to get caught you know you you
80. 3:43really don't want to start a policy of
81. 3:45sweeping things under the rug anymore
82. 3:48there's a new thing with dodd-frank that
83. 3:56you can actually be part of the problem
84. 3:58you can be within the accounting
85. 4:00department helping to book wrong entries
86. 4:03come to Jesus and decide you don't want
87. 4:05to do that anymore and you can try to
88. 4:07correct it within your company if they
89. 4:09don't correct it you can go to the SEC
90. 4:11and you can still get the 30 percent
91. 4:13bounty program because they really want
92. 4:15the wrongdoing to surface to the top I
93. 4:18spoke at an ABA conference last month
94. 4:21and they said that anyone can report it
95. 4:24so they said corporations keep fighting
96. 4:26it but they don't realize that if
97. 4:27wrongdoing is brought up internally the
98. 4:30head of the Audit Committee of the board
99. 4:31could decide he's just going to report
100. 4:33and you get to stay anonymous no one
101. 4:35ever knows you did it it's very very
102. 4:37helpful so I think it is a different
103. 4:39world I'm very happy about it but here's
104. 4:41the problem we still face I'll just read
105. 4:44this to you because it is kind of tiny
106. 4:45print with all this stuff with
107. 4:47dodd-frank Richard Levak is the head of
108. 4:49a crisis management firm
109. 4:50he wrote the whistleblowers who are most
110. 4:53credible and who can therefore hurt you
111. 4:55the most are genuinely appalled by
112. 4:57whatever misprision they've learned
113. 4:59about their driving intent is to see the
114. 5:01problem correct