Placed in dangerous situation by company after exposing fraud

[angryseals]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

First, I'm being intentionally vague in an attempt to prevent breaking any laws. I caught two superiors stealing money, and brought it to the attention of their manager. During the conversation with the manager, I made it clear that I wanted to remain anonymous, if possible- and also made it clear that even revealing that there was a tip would lead directly to me. When my superiors found out that they were being investigated, they spoke to me in private. During the conversation, they not-so-subtly asked me to lie for them- while one of them played with a box cutter. I immediately told the person managing the investigation everything that had happened, and expressed deep concern about being revealed as the tipster.

The next day, the person conducting the investigation sent my superiors' immediate manager to tell them that they were being placed on suspension pending an investigation. During his conversation with them, he chastised them for intimidating me! This simultaneously outed me as the person who left the tip and proved to them that I didn't say what I had promised to say the day before. Unfortunately, no direct threat was made and I can't prove intent, so the police will be no help. Even though I directly expressed concern three times about my physical safety to their superior after he gave me away, he dismissed my concerns, and told me to go on working as I had been. He said that they wouldn't be "stupid enough" to do anything. Unfortunately, part of my job requires me to work alone in a building on a predictable schedule at night, with no surveillance equipment, no alarm, and no locked doors. Even more unfortunate is that I have no further recourse. HR is already involved, and the vice president was the person I spoke to immediately after being intimidated. I have to believe that the company's actions have potentially placed me in danger. What can I do?

p.s. Sorry if this is in the wrong category, I wasn't sure where it should go.

 

[las365]

First, you file a police report. Second, you ask your employer for protective measures and do whatever it is that you feel you need to do to protect yourself (within the law, please, no arming yourself illegally or anything like that). If that means quitting your job, quit.

If you do quit, you may or may not be eligible for unemployment benefits.

You do not have a basis for a lawsuit against your employer for failing to hnor your request for anonymity.

 

[angryseals]

While I find it surprising that they didn't honor my request for anonymity, I believe that the real problem is that I expressed concern for my safety three times immediately after it happened, and that I was dismissed three times. I believe that I do need to quit, which will undoubtedly hurt my resume, as well as my wallet. In short, their dismissal of my statements of concern are forcing me to either quit or be in a dangerous situation. Given that choice, I will quit.

If I'm unemployed months from now, despite my best efforts to find a job, can I sue for the wages I lost and/or the damage done to my ability to find another job?

 

[cbg]

Of course not.

 

[commentator]

Right, of course not. In this situation, possibly being approved for unemployment benefits after quitting the job would be your only possible financial recoup. Of course going out and trying to find another job while you are still working at this one is absolutely the best way to handle this.

But I am not even sure you'd have a very good chance to draw unemployment if you quit as things are right now. If the situation escalates, that might make it more likely to be approved, and give you more motivation to quit, but then, hopefully it would give your employers more incentive to protect you.

What I am hearing right now is no direct threats from these guys. That you feel you work in an unsafe security condition and that you feel they might be going to come after you...and you have reported this to your management, and they have pretty much decided to blow it off...well, really, nothing has happened. If you receive any actual threats, other than the guy playing with a box cutter suggestively while asking you to lie for them, then you will have more.

But think of it from the two thieves' point of view. They might be mad at you for snitching on them. They might have preferred to threaten you (implied threat only) and get you to lie for them. But since you didn't, I agree with your managers, there's not a great likelihood that they will return to avenge themselves upon you.

For one thing, they've got other troubles to worry about, assuming the company is firing them, investigating them, pressing charges against them. Were there other employees who had knowledge of what was going on? If so, they can't threaten everyone.

For another, if your beaten body is found in the workplace, duh, who are they going to pick up for it? There are many people who will steal, very few who will move up to serious assault of the reporter when caught. Especially since they have very little chance of getting away with it.

It does sound as though you work under unsafe conditions anyway. I suggest you check with OSHA, discuss this with HR. It's not just that you're worried about those two guys, anyone could come in off the street and kill you. The two guys could tell someone who would be interested in doing a robbery in such a situation. This is the thing I'd work on with HR, either a back up person, security cameras, a locked door, or something to secure the worksite a bit.

If you quit, "what did you do to attempt to resolve the situation before quitting?" is the question that the unemployment office will ask you. Frankly, I think you need to do a little more to try to save your job and protect yourself before you quit.

 

[angryseals]

Thank you for the help. It looks like I'm just not in a very good position to quit, which is unfortunate. Hopefully I'll be able to talk them into at least installing a camera, which would be nice regardless of the current situation. As far as threatening all the other employees goes, they know without a doubt that it was me because I was the only person who knew about this, and because the person investigating told them that it was me. So, let's just hope that they're too smart to actually do anything about it, right? Again, thanks for everything.