New Changes to California Whistleblower Retaliation Laws

Whistleblower laws protects an employee from being retaliated against after reporting an employer that has violated the law or breached the public trust. Under the California Labor Code Section 1102.5, employers cannot create or enforce any rules preventing employees from whistleblowing. If an employer retaliates against a whistleblower, the employer may be required to reinstate the employee’s employment and work benefits, pay lost wages, and take other steps necessary to comply with the law.

The recent law changes now extends this protection to employees who make internal reports about suspected violations of the federal securities laws and other anti-fraud statutes, even if they never report the suspected violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As stated by the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR), the law protects an employee who discloses information to “a government or law enforcement agency, person with authority over the employee, or to another employee with authority to investigate, discover, or correct the violation or noncompliance, or who provides information to or testifies before a public body conducting an investigation, hearing or inquiry, where the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses.”