Whistleblowers And Management

[We] find that whistleblowers start out expecting a constructive or at least modest organizational response to their disclosures. In our interviews whistleblowers told us time and again that they started out believing that because they were valued and respected employees, their information presented to the "higher-ups" would be taken seriously and would be the catalyst for the constructive organizational change they sought. As a result few were prepared for what was about to happen to them...

...the full resources of the organization will be brought to bear against them... In cases we studied... management immediately fired the individual, or if that was not possible, then they set up the process by which they could later be fired, by abruptly downgrading their job performance. When claims of "incompetence" could not be sustained, they would endeavor to get the whistleblower labeled "crazy"... "out of their mind" or a "paranoid schizophrenic."... management reprisals begin as soon as management becomes aware that the individual might become a whistleblower. (1)

Now isn't this exactly the process that happened to Kevin Annett when he exposed the genocidal practices at the Alberni Residential School? He thought the United Church officials would deal with the issue but was told to shut up. When he refused to keep quiet was fired and his sanity questioned. From the above quote, we see this to be a normal process that happens to whistleblowers. For any readers taken in by Church propaganda about Kevin – read the above quote and think again! See:

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

1. Joyce Rothchild and Terance D. Miethe, "Whistleblowing as Resistance in Modern Work Organizations..." in A. Baum and J. E. Singer eds "Advances in Environmental Psychology" pp 264-266 as quoted in Kevin Carson "Organizational Theory – A Libertarian Perspective" p.255 (For Carson's work see;

http://members.tripod.com/kevin_carson/