You betcha they are folks. We are taught from a young age it is not good to be a “tattle tale”. So what happens to whistleblowers? Slabbed reader James Barbieri, a whistleblower that is now retired from the World Bank shared that bit of unpleasantness with the Slabbed nation back in January via his legal treatise:
While the subject matter of this note is a legal claim, the “real” subject matter of whistleblower litigation is the whistleblower; a modern day tragic hero. While the law ostensibly protects and/or rewards the whistleblower, statistics show that whistleblowers usually experience personal and financial destruction. To talk about the Rigsbys‟ legal claim without discussing their personal plight (which is the common plight of most whistleblowers) would be unconscionable.
C. Fred Alford a professor at the University of Maryland (College Park) is an expert on whistle blowers and their subsequent misery. “Somewhere between half and two-thirds of whistleblowers lose their jobs… … Not only do most whistleblowers get fired, but they rarely get their jobs back. Most never work in the field again. …..Of the several dozen whistleblowers I have talked with, most lost their houses. Many lost their families. … Most whistleblowers will suffer from depression and alcoholism. … half went bankrupt.”
Somewhere in that depressing narrative lies the reason we’re stepping up to help both in the False Claims Act case against State Farm as well as those that speak out on the corruption in Jefferson Parish government.
In this clip from the last Parish Council meeting Miss Seeman mentions several whistleblowers including Lonnie Robinson and the rumored destruction of public records. Continue reading “Meet good government citizen/activist Margie Seeman part deux: Are whistleblowers in Jefferson Parish being silenced?”