language is no brainerr barrierr
"It must be signed voluntarily."
Not much more to say :-)
azdiyy
On 19/06/07, dan harp dharp66@yahoo.com wrote:
open communication........
open information with no filters.....
that is what I see us becoming.
So.....perhaps a broader peramiter other than legal / illegal ; and certainly a chain of comand but also one to represent the whistleblower.
provided of course that all other attempts to resolve issues have taken place.
--- Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
No, illegal is illegal in the legal sense. This policy is only about reporting a violation of the (US) law.
ant
effe iets anders wrote:
Does illegal here also mean "not in line with the
policy / strategy
set by the Board"?
KR, Lodewijk
2007/6/19, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/15/07, Florence Devouard
Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
- and a whistleblower policy
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Whistleblower_Policy&ol...)
Not much more to say :-)
If you have any issue to raise, any criticism,
or whatever, please do
not hesitate to comment.
My initial reaction to the whistleblower policy
was that it was a very
bad policy. However, I thought maybe I was just
overreacting, so I
didn't comment on it. Then I asked Danny, who
is a former employee of
the corporation, what he thought. His response,
which I'm not going
to get into in detail on this list, expressed
the exact same concern
that I had. The policy leaves the executive
director and board chair
in a position of ultimate authority. And there
isn't even an
executive director right now.
The rest of my comments are my own, and not
derived from Danny's.
"If any employee reasonably believes that some
policy, practice, or
activity of Wikimedia Foundation Inc is in
violation of law, a written
complaint must be filed by that employee with
the Executive Director
or the Board Chair." The word "must" there is
incredibly disturbing.
It also bothers me that employees are the ones
expected to sign this
policy. Looking at this policy, it seems to me
that it will only
serve to stifle the spread of information.
Anything anyone believes
to be illegal must be reported to the board
chair. The board chair is
not required by the policy to do *anything at
all* with that
information.
I don't understand what the purpose was of the
whistleblower policy,
but it doesn't seem like it serves any positive
purpose.
Please first read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower to fully
understand the basics of the whistleblower issue.
The purpose of a whistleblower policy is largely
to protect employees
when they are reporting illegal activity, in
particular illegal activity
from one of their "superior" (hierarchically
speaking, eg, a person who
can fire them). In the absence of a policy, an
employee could report one
of his boss is acting illegally and as a
consequence, be fired, or be
mishandled (get no raise, have responsabilities
removed etc...)
The whistleblower policy is a statement from the
management and board,
saying that it is okay to report illegal activity
and that you can not
be punished if you do that.
However, to avoid simple baseless bad-mouthing,
the protection is only
given if the employee comes with arguments,
facts, figures, photos, any
type of evidence or at a minimum information
strongly supporting the
suspicion of abuse. In the absence of significant
documentation, an
accusation from an employee will be perceived as
personal attacks, and
no protection will be offered. This is also a
good way to prevent
constant recrimination against another person. In
short, if an employee
has a base for complain, he is protected. If he
is just bad-mouthing
with no argument, then there is no protection.
The policy we agreed upon is a fairly common one.
It really holds
nothing special. It was reviewed by a lawyer.
Ultimately, an employee might refuse to sign it.
I am fine with the
concept. But then, if he reports something
illegal, whether based or
not, then is fired by his immediate boss as a
retaliation act, then, I
believe he can not easily connect the fact he is
fired from the fact he
reported abuse.
The main reason why this policy was adopted is
that this issue was
raised in the past; by Danny himself, who told me
once he did not dare
report something, because he feared he would be
fired. Well, with this
policy, and if he had signed it, he would be
protected. The important
point is that legally speaking, when there is an
illegal activity going
on around you, you are supposed to report it. If
a kid is killed and you
know the murderer, you are bound by law to report
the name (unless it is
someone family related etc...). However, an
employee could argue he did
not respect the law, because he feared being
fired for reporting the
abuse. With that policy, he can not claim that he
would be fired. The
important part in this is that if the employee is
aware of illegal
activity, and does not report it, then he is
"sharing" the
responsability and becoming himself part of the
abuse. Consequently,
this is a powerful tool to ensure that abuse is
reported.
The second reason why the policy was adopted now
is that we expect to
have a new ED very soon. Which means that the
board will be "further"
from the staff and the staff mostly work with the
ED. In case there is
anything wrong going on with the ED, the staff
can report to the chair,
and they will be protected through the policy. At the same time, it protects the ED, as
employees can not do
bad-mouthing without facts. In short, if an
employee comes to us and say
"the ED is securing money for himself", the
answer we can give is "do
you have proof of that accusation ? If you do,
then please provide the
documentation, and you are protected by the
policy. If you don't, please
keep your opinions to yourself; thanks".
Note that the dual reporting system makes it
possible to report to the
ED of an abuse by the chair. Note, for now, this
policy has not been
signed by any staff member. It must be signed
voluntarily.
Last, the issue of the chair not being required
by the policy to act if
he is reported an illegal issue. It is not
necessary to mention in the
policy that the chair must act in case he is
informed of abuse, because
he is required to act in case of abuse. "All
corporate powers shall be
exercised by or under the authority of, and the
business and affairs of
the Foundation shall be managed under, the
direction of the Board of
Trustees." In case of non-action when abuse is
reported, the chair is
the first in line and usually gets consequences
much heavier than simply
being "fired".
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