Employees who are retaliated against for reporting violations of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance reforms will get whistleblower protection, under an interim final rule announced recently by OSHA.

Last month, Assistant Secretary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Dr. David Michaels held an OSHA Employees All-Hands Meeting. OSHA employees who were not able to attend the meeting in person were able to participate through the web.

The owner of a marine construction company allegedly created hostile working conditions by making physically threatening gestures, making inappropriate sexual comments and advances, yelling, screaming – and withholding the paycheck of an employee who objected  to that behavior.

OSHA's new Whistleblower Protection Advisory Committee held its first meeting last week in Washington, D.C. Representatives from both management and labor highlighted improvements made to the program over the past 18 months.

Recently released statistics from OSHA show whistleblower claims are surging. This underscores the need for employers to be prepared for would-be whistleblowers and have procedures in place to handle complaints internally, lawyers said Tuesday. The number of whistleblower cases OSHA received pursuant to the 22 laws it enforces increased to 2,787 in fiscal 2012, up from 2,648 in 2011, reflecting steady yearly increases since 2009.

OSHA is considering allowing whistleblowers to submit their complaints online. That new method is part of a proposal by the agency to provide additional methods for employees to submit retaliation complaints to the agency, including electronic submission.

The BNSF Railway Co. has signed an accord with OSHA in which the company agrees to voluntary revise several personnel policies that OSHA alleged violated the whistleblower provisions of the Federal Railroad Safety Act and dissuaded workers from reporting on-the-job injuries.

Contractors who do work for the federal government will be under increased scrutiny – and whistleblower protection – thanks to a set of amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 3254) recently approved by the Senate.

A pilot who was fired after blowing the whistle on pilot certification fraud was ordered reinstated by OSHA. The whistleblower, a pilot from Illinois, alleges that he was asked to falsify a pilot certification for a training flight he performed with another pilot.

Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels has named Beth Slavet as the new director of the agency's Whistleblower Protection Program.