/r/Whistleblowers
A place to report abuse and dishonesty by the people with power.
For those that see something wrong and speak out. This subreddit is for news and discussion of whistle blowers and topics there in related.
/r/Whistleblowers
I am all for the disclosure hearing on November 13th. Have I missed something? David Grusch made the headlines with the original hearing but I've not heard anything from him this year? I Googled his name and nothing is coming up... what is going on please?
We write this statement as a collective of former employees from across levels and projects at Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS). Through this statement we hope to hold to account former CEO Khaleda Noon, current Executive Director Garvin Sealy, Director of Operations Gerald Richards, and Chair of the Board Satwat Rehman, for the harm they have caused to employees, and to the young people reliant on IYS services. We write with sadness over their dismantling of an organisation that we once all believed in and saw the anti-racist impact of. In the last two years, the workforce at IYS has depleted from close to 30 staff to fewer than 8, due to a longstanding historic culture of bullying, victimisation, and racism, which has been embedded into the practices and is still present today. All staff who have left have done so under duress, for lack of morale, as victims of bullying and intimidation, or have had their contracts terminated with insufficient warning. Staff have been specifically targeted if they have been part of unionisation efforts, if they have submitted grievances, or if they have raised verbal and written concerns of financial mismanagement and poor practice.
We are concerned that IYS continues to promote services within Scottish Government spaces, on social media, and in meetings with funders, that simply cannot exist due to the staffing shortage and insufficient ethical praxis. Projects have been discontinued while informing neither the young people reliant on them, nor even the partners who think they are supporting those projects. Its Board and successive leaders have systematically acted in direct opposition to IYS’ founding anti-racist principles, and have stripped IYS of all anti-racist knowledge and practice, to the point that it can no longer ethically operate as an anti-racist organisation.
The culture of manipulation, unprofessionalism, and nepotism started with the previous CEO, Khaleda Noon, and is firmly embedded into the work culture. Promotions were made based on personal relationships with leadership, rather than skills and expertise, while women of colour in particular were bullied, overlooked, and denied basic working rights. The majority of staff raised a collective concern about unethical practice and inadequate safeguarding protocols to the leadership two years ago, which was dismissed, and was then followed by recriminations and retaliations against staff seen as the ringleaders of this whistleblowing statement. Further grievances resulted in a 7-month investigation, at which point the Board confirmed that bullying allegations against the CEO were true, but chose to keep those findings from staff. This enabled the CEO to continue to bully staff, and then leave on her own terms without repercussion, having taken the intellectual property of her employees to immediately found a new charity.
Throughout this process, the Board constantly framed IYS’ financial situation as in crisis to limit staff expenditure, but refused to explain how funds for youth services continued to be misused on inflated external consultant fees, nebulous office costs, and vanity projects. The Board brought in Garvin Sealy and Gerald Richards as new leadership in 2024, who exploited and amplified the existing failures of the organisation. Basic rights like flexible working and reasonable adjustments for disabilities were withheld from all except for the most favoured employees. Essential compliance was dismissed, including food allergies for high-risk young people in the organisation’s care, data protection regulations, and urgent referrals from vulnerable service users. Indeed, staff who raised such concerns had their disabilities and poor mental health held against them as cause for marginalisation in the workplace, exclusion from meetings, and even cause for dismissal. Communication became increasingly hostile, intimidating, belittling, and humiliating, with staff regularly reduced to tears with no follow up from leadership. Leaders spread gossip and made last-minute personnel changes to pit teams and individuals against one another over scant support and presentation opportunities, fostering a culture of suspicion and mistrust, isolation and poor mental health. There became no expectation of career progression, training was scrapped, praise was focused on staff who did not raise concerns, and staff were made to work under constant threat of their jobs ending. Younger female employees were those most at risk of being cornered for coercive conversations, and of having their behaviour policed.
Gerald Richards’ initial appointment on a short-term (3-month) consultancy basis, allowed him to evade accountability and blame the previous administration, despite being in the role for almost a year now. Both leaders have maximised their high-profile public appearances in this period to legitimise their wrongdoing. Garvin Sealy, since being in post, has further toxified the entire organisation, intimidating, denigrating, and gaslighting employees, while presenting a veneer of normality to funders and partners outside the organisation. The consequence of these actions has meant that vital and previously successful projects have been cut for young people with minimal notice, and employees on programmes they were passionate about and dedicated to were reporting depression, work-related stress, and long-term physical illness. IYS became an untenable place to work, and yet at every point that staff spoke of these concerns, they risked further victimisation and marginalisation.
As a collective, we are most concerned by this fundamental dissonance between the public presentation of IYS and its internal practice. It is disingenuous for IYS to call itself youth-led when its leadership consistently dismisses the perspectives of staff working directly with young people. It is hypocritical that IYS calls itself a safe space for young Black people and people of colour when its leadership has always treated its marginalised staff with contempt. Staff leave the organisation feeling more traumatised, mentally unhealthy, and financially precarious than they did when they entered. IYS is not, and for some time has not been, anti-racist in its core values, practice, and mission. We know from experience that these four leaders of IYS have a history of scapegoating other staff, to avoid accountability for the toxic work culture they have created. We hope that this letter serves to reframe your current or prospective relationship with IYS, as well as the four leaders mentioned in this letter, as irredeemable.
Who would I need to contact and send this to? I’m tired of risking my health and body. we have oil leaking out the building into the grass. Our lifts have failed inspections… exposed wires etc etc I live in Columbia sc
I have evidence that directly links DARPA to the targeting of civilians as guinea pigs for unconsentual biomedical research and experimentation. Who should I contact to get help with this situation. I myself am a victim of unconsentual biomedical research and experimentation and need help.
Hi all,
I’m a journalist and magazine editor looking into cases of internal comms breakdowns within companies - lack of clear communications, support, poor internal cultures and management.
If anyone would be interested in talking to me anonymously about their experiences with any of the above, please get in touch.
email: rxcca@proton.me
I called osha the other day and they came through and investigated what I called them about still waiting on the report. However it was talk of my company when I came in today and I was told "they know who called and have to wait 30 days before they can do anything about it". I know i have rights but how long am I actually protected against retaliation? I'm a model employee i.e Perfect attendance and have been recognized as on of the top operators on my shift. Not really looking to loose my job like this however my safety guy is a joke and doesn't know anything nor will he enforce anything. I work in the state of Indiana
Sounds crazy but I am very serious about this. Three weeks ago I left my job working for a retail chain store. The mistreatment and abuse that I and many others faced is repulsive. The corruption is putrid. I feel it is an injustice to simply leave quietly. Some things they did were definitely against labor laws at time, but I feel this needs to be known outside of just the legal realm so that others can avoid a similar fate to mine. How do I do this? Is there a safe way for me to connect to a journalist or a publishing company that would be willing to hear my stories? This retail company is massive, I'll be honest, I do fear retaliation of some kind as some people have already faced that while still employed. Any advice would be great, thank you.
Hi this is gonna be a long post about just the different terrible things dollar general did not only while I worked there but to some people I know, before you even think I promise this isn’t just a rant about hours or pay this goes way beyond that.
So I worked at dollar general back in 2021 but some people close to me had been working there since way back in the early 2010’s. First of all more than anything I don’t want to use anyone’s real names but a lot of this stuff can be fact checked I’m sure somewhere by others anecdotes or reports. But anyways the person i was closest to, i’ll call Sarah, had started off at the bottom of the totem pole and had to work her way up over years. During this time she went through multiple events such as robbery, assault, many instances of overworking etc.
Fast forward a little while and Sarah is training to become a manager while acting as assistant manager to another store. One of Sarah’s main duties was working the freezer section and ordering/checking in new merchandise. One day while trying to get some frozen food out of the back freezer the door ,which normally would have been propped open, shut and closed her inside. Normally these doors are very heavy and can swing back easily, there was also an emergency push button inside the freezer to open the door incase of an emergency. Sarah attempted to use the emergency button but it would not open the doors. Turns out the lubrication mechanism was faulty and caused the doors emergency button to fail.
Sarah would then bang on the walls of the freezer hard enough to leave dents to try to get the attention of another employee or customer. Sadly no one was able to hear her due to how far back in the store the freezer was. Sarah had used boxes from the frozen food to try to insulate herself until someone could help her. Luckily after a couple of hours her manager finally heard the banging and was able to get her out of the freezer. At first she thought it was a joke because coincidentally this happened in April first.
After reporting and letting district managers know what happened Dollar General was nice enough to have the vice president at the time come down and investigate the incident himself. He himself put himself into the freezer and yet again the emergency button failed. Sarah despite what had happened to her and the proof that it wasn’t a one off accident, denied any sort of compensation for the incident. She believed in the company at the time but also was worried about any repercussions the company may have had. The vice president actually had stepped away from dollar general shortly after due to the incident but did come back and actually take on the CEO position for a while.
About a year or so after Sarah went on to become the manager of her own store, while here she was met with more challenges due to low hours. I can recount the years she would work by herself in the store just to be able to give employees their own hours. You see dollar general managers were salary but expected to work overtime as needed without compensation. Which isn’t atypical in many companies but to work entire shifts months on end by herself was outright theft of her time. Dollar general managers didn’t count against the hours for the other employees so sadly this was her only solution.
Sarah managed however to bring the store to a grand point. It was awarded circle of excellence which in the dollar general world means one of the top performing stores. Afterwards she was asked by a district manager if she’d like to take on a new store. Sarah wanted this challenge and thought it would be good for herself. The new store however was left in shambles by a previous manager.
It was around this time I had started working for dollar general at Sarah’s old store. My employment with the company did rely on my being flexible to work multiple stores as needed which I agreed to since hey more hours. Sarah’s new store was one of them.
Fast forward a few months because I’m sure I’m starting to bore you, typical hours issues and labor being hard to keep was normal at this point. But then came the rats. You see dollar general warehouses aren’t the very clean. And when these warehouses get infested the rodents like to come in with the stock that gets sent out. Luckily my main store wasn’t affected but Sarah’s store was. We would have a dumpster dropped off outside the store and take turns throwing away whole containers of merchandise due to the outbreak. At this time the store was still open to the public and we were instructed not to mention why the merchandise was getting thrown out.
Dollar general thought it was more important to keep making money than prevent major health risks to the consumers. It took about two months of work constantly throwing away inventory before the issue was resolved. At this point Sarah desperately needed a break which I think we can all agree was well deserved. During this time multiple employees decided to quit due to not having their way with the schedule and i along with one other employee were left to fend for ourselves, note again this store wasn’t the main one I was assigned to work at.
We managed the best we could with the very little help given to us, Sarah would have to come back and hire almost all new staff which was roughly 5 persons. Which the size of this store isn’t the normal size dollar general, it was much larger and I’d estimate needed at-least 5 employees a shift in order to function properly let alone 5 employees on the payroll alone. Sarah would still have to work shifts alone in order to give these employees enough hours to live off of, this reached the point of her passing out in the store while by herself. I begged and pleaded with Sarah to quit as obviously this was not good for her mental or physical health anymore but she couldn’t. Dollar general had brainwashed her and wouldn’t let her go. Many excuses and empty promises made but never fulfilled. It took another year from that point before Sarah would finally leave the company.
While this story is about Sarah and her awful experience with the company it’s not uncommon to hear other managers be treated with such little regard. Sarah is just one of many who suffered for a company who didn’t care about anything more than profits. A company who gave sweet promises in order to brainwash people and risk the health and safety of their own consumers before making any changes.
This isn’t a call to start a major boycott against the company but if anything raise awareness. These people are treated terribly and without any sort of compensation for their efforts. If Sarah could go back she would’ve gladly taken any sort of settlement from Dollar general for the freezer incident, she would have also never left her store she had worked so hard on to reach circle of excellence. But regardless if she really could, Sarah would have avoided working for dollar general at all.
Side note: feel free to question anything as I may have had some details fuzzy in my memories, I’m more than welcome to any corrections on if something mentioned turns out to be misrepresented or I was misremembering anything. Also I’m down to answer any reasonable questions in the comments.
TLDR: dollar general mistreats their managers by making them work overtime without compensation and would prefer costumers buy rat infested products versus shutting a store down.
This article highlights the most corrupt politicians around the world and explores corruption by some of the world’s most popular politicians and how it affects the systems.
https://maltabulletin.mt/top-10-most-corrupt-politicians-world/
I'm writing this as an ex-employee at a BPO in Gurgaon, which is a small US-based cellular network company. They hire quickly but overwhelm staff with 5-6 stressful chats at once. They claim not to fire employees, yet the pressure often drives them to leave.
Many Indian workers still face exploitation, with little government support. Those who try to start their own businesses often face pushback from authorities, leaving them disheartened.
Employees are easily manipulated and sometimes even insult each other. Despite being a US company, they hide low salaries under the guise of performance incentives, which are nearly impossible to achieve due to constant monitoring.
We’re required to log every action, and the work environment feels oppressive, with management displaying a lack of empathy. New hires are expected to perform like experienced staff, without proper training. They don’t provide proper support for customers in the USA, leaving employees feeling overwhelmed and unable to assist effectively. The tools we have are inadequate, making it difficult to resolve customer issues. Many times, I felt helpless while chatting with customers, wanting to help them, but my team lead or SME would say we weren’t authorized to offer even a $1 credit.
Every time you see a chat support executive, please have some compassion for them. I wanted to assist customers, and the low pay wasn't an issue for me as long as I could provide help. But ultimately, we have very little control over the situation.
The company also uses music to distract from the stress of handling multiple chats, but realistically, no one can effectively manage more than three at once. Attendance tracking is complicated, with several systems in place that make the workday even more stressful.
By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist
Link: https://zacharyellison.substack.com/p/part-122-the-la-fed-tapes-leak-a
What if no one had investigated Watergate?
I'm not how to describe our situation...
Basically, I have been fighting alone for 2,5 years against organised crime and corrupt government parties to save my son from Child Trafficking.
I know that the only reason that corrupt government parties are able to break the law this badly and do this to my child is that I'm a nobody and no one cares what happens to us.
I finally wrote down the whole case here https://docs.google.com/document/d/11FpAActuqa4XZ43d_SpAIboBtvveZaf8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=103741471217116778999&rtpof=true&sd=true
I know that this document is incredibly long, so I did my best to summarise. But I could not leave out any important information and it is very complicated.
The thing is that if this case were to gain public attention, it would become an international scandal. I'm not exaggerating one bit, it is that serious.
I need help desperately. I need people to find out about this because going public is the only way to save my child and expose the child trafficking in Malta that has countless victims. I'm aware that people don't have time but I honestly do not have any other option.
What makes this piece really hit home is the whistleblower's efforts to make some moral sense of his story despite the sense that his actions made no difference.
Went to a company party and overheard someone tell another coworker (whom i do not know) "not to sound racist, but you look like your family owns gas stations"
I felt badly for my coworker. No one said anything as everyone seemingly stood in shock. I made a comment that it was rude but it wasn't received well.
Everyone just brushed over it and i was upset for my friend
I have reported it but now I feel badly and worry if perhaps there was a better way to handle it. I also feel it will be quite obvious i reported since im the only one who spoke up.
Nervous for work next week.
I work at a scientific research facility
Could do with some advice.
I was a former employee of Oreilly auto parts and im finally blowing the whistle on how terrible working there was. My coworker were great but the management was shit. I was getting pushed Todo opening and closing when people would call out for there closing shifts and was bashed (by the store manager and district manager) on using my own sick leave and my own time off. Every time i would call in the first question was always "how come? are you sick? or are u not just not wanting to come into work?" which i will inform you that asking these questions are against the law. Management was trying to find a way to fire me for 2 years. They would always write me up after another write up would end. The reason that they would use is being 1-2 mins late for clock in, but they failed to consider that sometimes the computers will fail to reach a connection to the clock in page. On the other hand our store manager would come in anywhere from 30mins-2hrs late. He never received a write but instead got a verbal warning but still continued to be late. I was a very knowable employee and the amount of disrespect this company has is insane. The store manager even had the courage to txt me on my birthday to come in because they were terminating my employment for clocking out at 9:28 instead of 9:30. This early clock out was due to me being coming back to lunch early. The store manager even said we didn't have any extra hours but so i took that in to consideration and though it would be okay to even out my time clock for the day. Before i was fired i even got promised a raise but never seen my pay go up. I even asked the store manager about this and all he kept saying was he will talk to higher up about it. if you guys want to hear more just let me know. Please share your horror stories about this company. Sorry Oreilly but you guys even made me work on my lunch with no compensation and if you guys this there isn't any retaliation that happens, there is a lot, and it mainly comes from store managers and district managers.
By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist
October 15, 2024
The power of incumbency in politics is strong. Former Councilmember José Huizar had just reported to federal prison in Lompoc to begin his 13-year sentence, and at the end of three debates, one-person and two virtual, it still wasn’t clear that challenger Ysabel Jurado could unseat Kevin de León. The upstart Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidate, who had even received the endorsement of the Los Angeles Democratic Party, had struggled across the three in-person debates with De León’s forcefulness, attacking her shamelessly. To be fair, the venue locales were all favorable to De León: Lincoln Heights, El Sereno, and Boyle Heights. Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano had called the performance of De León in the third showdown in Dolores Mission Church, beneath a crucifix, “a man with a huge chip on his shoulder eclipsed by an ego as large as the General Sherman tree.” Comparing him to Donald Trump, who has no actual connection with KDL, as they call him, was probably a mistake.
Kevin de León seemingly has relished in the MAGA energy, so much so you’d like he was almost going to Make The Eastside Great Again; he was, as Arellano had previously cast him, now the ultimate “Eastside politico.” Try as they may, comparing José Huizar and Kevin De León simply hadn’t worked because, well, unlike Huizar, whatever baggage of corruption that KDL carried has simply remained out of the limelight. Even the furor of the LA Fed Tapes, the notoriously leaked recordings in which KDL sat down with former LA City Council President Nury Martinez, former Councilmember Gil Cedillo, and the former President of the LA County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO (the LA Fed). His recovery campaign had worked; despite the turmoil, De León had simply outwaited his critics. Unlike the second debate, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles was simply locked out of the venue hosted by the Boyle Heights Beat to the sidewalk. A few Los Angeles Police Department officers stood across the street chatting.
Link: https://zacharyellison.substack.com/p/part-120-kevin-de-leon-vs-the-truth
They use their accounts to abuse the system, spread propaganda, disinformation, and they harness bot farms to boost their karma rating. Eventually they make their way onto mod privileges in major subreddits and get large groups of people banned with no recourse.
I won’t mention any usernames, but if you see subreddits that share misinformation, racism, violence, misleading context, misleading sub titles, and frequently ban people without valid reasoning…simply find the list of moderators and follow the trail of those specific moderators posts and the subs they moderate. It always leads back to a handful of “high profile” accounts with boosted karma and mod privileges across numerous subreddits.
Most of them share “anti-western” sentiments and may actually be foreign actors abusing this platform to spread influence and disinformation.
The head of the department just hired the services of a new consultat to support our needs. Timing may be okay, since we have some employees that are on maternity leave. Turns out the new person is the son of the head of the department's best friend. Both worked together in a similar position (in-house/agency relationship) in the past. This person may be qualified, but the process has been handled in secrecy. It looks shady and like conflict of interest to me. Not to mention the generous and somewhat questionable compensation, and lack of transparency, to say the least. Is this a cause of termination? Should the team report them? Looking for serious advice here. PS. The head of the department is currently on a leisure trip overseas WITH the new consultant's mom.
Idk if this is the right group to post this in and if it's against community guidelines I'm sorry.
I am a former employee of let's say, a small government. I'm pretty much trying to be a whistleblower but every person I've contacted will not get back to me. I guess b/c I'm sharing things anonymously. I even have reached out to the state gov officials that I know (some I'm even worked with)- still remaining anon. I've tried making a fake FB bc this community thrives on FB but it was denied obvi because it was fake. I've created an X account, but I'm sure that's not going to go anywhere. Any recommendations??
One of the people I was trying to blow the whistle on resigned and I think it's because of an email I sent to her boss, but I still have others I'm trying to blow the whistle on-- hell, including him. I know they've broken laws and if the right people ask for the right things, they'll find proof. I've even reached out to my local paper letting them know that. I just don't think they're going to investigate.
If anybody has any ideas, please help.
Don't know if it's allowed to call this issue out here but heat me out. Check out my link no money needed just a share no need to even live in the state of Kansas definitely isn't a scam. I'll post a link with the back story a little chunk at that, and the link for the petition you decide. But please I 🙏🏿 need help. https://chng.it/jVmsjS54ry
By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist
Link: Kevin de León vs. Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez.pdf (Case No. 23STCV24461)
Link: Gil Cedillo vs. Santos Leon, Karla Vasquez, and LA Fed.pdf (Case No. 23STCV24442)
Two years ago, Los Angeles was rocked by the biggest political scandal perhaps ever in its history. Outside of valuable reports from Los Angeles Magazine journalist Michele McPhee and this publication, there hasn’t been much other coverage of the two civil cases pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court since they were filed a year after the October 2022 scandal in October of 2023. So I’m pleased to be able to make the complete case files for the lawsuits filed by current Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de León and former City Councilmember Gil Cedillo fully available. To date, although these records have been quoted by both McPhee and myself, they haven’t been fully published to show the full proceedings. As recent controversy has reminded us, court records are public records, and the publication of such records is essential for a free and transparent press. Spend enough time in Los Angeles, and you’ll come to realize that working together to investigate gets you much further and faster.
Kevin de León’s lawsuit has progressed much faster than Cedillo’s, which has an additional party beyond the two publicly accused leakers of the LA Fed Tapes, Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez, both former employees of the LA Fed, short for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. The LA Fed remains a potent force of union power in Los Angeles politics, even as other unions such as the Service Employees International Union have made gains. In suing the LA Fed itself, Cedillo’s lawsuit is even more of a gamble than Kevin de León’s filing. The LA Fed is no longer led by former president Ron Herrera. Instead, it’s now led by Yvonne Wheeler, who is a veteran of the labor movement and Baton Rouge, Louisiana native. Herrera, along with former Council President Nury Martinez, De León, and Cedillo, were infamously clandestinely and quite illegally recorded on October 18, 2021, meeting in a conference room at the LA Fed’s headquarters for what critics call a backroom meeting.
Link: Part 118: Publishing the LA Fed Papers – Trial and Error Justice in the Digital Age