Massachusetts
I am an outside salesperson in a newspaper. In late January, our higher ups asked us to (on paper) transfer revenue from print to online, so that our online component looked higher than it actually was (note that that also reflected the transfer from one company within our organization to another within the same organization). Plus none of those requests were written, only verbal. My colleagues and I are also in a union, which is only relevant because so many of us were uncomfortable with this request that many conveyed our concern to the Guild. They went to HR who said they could do nothing and so the Guild went to the corporate headquarters of our company.
They sent their VP of Auditing to interview salespeople, managers, financial people in a period over two months. Nothing was heard until...
The VP who asked that we did these $ transfers announced last week that he had accepted another job in Iowa. His last day was Friday (yes, four days notice). He went onto a better, higher paying job, seemingly at no insistence of our company. Whatever happened, we will never know but it appears he left on his own and was not fired. Even if that was the case, or if he was fired, was not the initial request of moving dollars, not equivalent to 'cooking the books'? We are a public company and many in my group are questioning that said VP was not fired.
My question is that in a situation like this one, how can one ever really get to the truth when one's own corporation may have covered up too? As a concerned employee, when does one know enough to push an issue and when should one accept it?
I am an outside salesperson in a newspaper. In late January, our higher ups asked us to (on paper) transfer revenue from print to online, so that our online component looked higher than it actually was (note that that also reflected the transfer from one company within our organization to another within the same organization). Plus none of those requests were written, only verbal. My colleagues and I are also in a union, which is only relevant because so many of us were uncomfortable with this request that many conveyed our concern to the Guild. They went to HR who said they could do nothing and so the Guild went to the corporate headquarters of our company.
They sent their VP of Auditing to interview salespeople, managers, financial people in a period over two months. Nothing was heard until...
The VP who asked that we did these $ transfers announced last week that he had accepted another job in Iowa. His last day was Friday (yes, four days notice). He went onto a better, higher paying job, seemingly at no insistence of our company. Whatever happened, we will never know but it appears he left on his own and was not fired. Even if that was the case, or if he was fired, was not the initial request of moving dollars, not equivalent to 'cooking the books'? We are a public company and many in my group are questioning that said VP was not fired.
My question is that in a situation like this one, how can one ever really get to the truth when one's own corporation may have covered up too? As a concerned employee, when does one know enough to push an issue and when should one accept it?