US Department of Labor's OSHA orders DISH Network to pay more than $257,000 in wages and damages to

[TheKrell]

https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=NEWS_RELEASES&p_id=25749

Full disclosure: I first saw this on http://dslreports.com.

 

[eddie willers]

The story makes no sense.

 

[Mochuf]

The story makes no sense.

Sure it does. If the vendor was owned by some Dish executive's relative or the person who oversaw the contract was getting kickbacks.

 

[navychop]

That's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

 

[Voyager6]

The employee worked in DISH's marketing department between March 2007 and November 2008. In the summer of 2008, the complainant notified his superior that a vendor was defrauding DISH by charging for work it had not done. He filed a complaint with OSHA in August 2011 after learning that he had subsequently been blacklisted three times after leaving DISH Network. These included a negative job reference, DISH's refusal to do business with the complainant's subsequent employer and its refusal to carry a satellite channel after learning that the complainant represented the channel. OSHA's investigation found merit to the complaint and has ordered DISH Network to take corrective action.

How could you prove that Dish refused to do business with a company solely because someone was employed there? Dish refused to carry a satellite channel solely because of who represented the channel, come on man. OSHA bureaucrats at work.

 

[Poke]

Yes this happen more often that what people realize it's just in most cases it never makes it to court due to they usually settle before taking it that far. It's almost like punishing the whistle blower who is trying to do the right things so companies can not ruined their lives for doing the things that the company should be taking care of. There are laws now that protects people who are brave enough to come out and report things that their company might not be doing right or how someone else is doing something against their company. Which in many cases it protects other customers for being over charged or against fraud so forth..

 

[Tampa8]

The amount of the "damage" and wages levied tells me this has to be a marginal case at best. If there was some meat to it we would be reading about it, such as unsafe installs or something that DISH was notified of and did nothing about. If a vendor is ripping off DISH, and DISH chooses not to do anything I fail to see how that rises to any action, unless of course safety was involved, or illegal use of labor perhaps. (Though if a vendor I don't know that DISH has an obligation to investigate or drop a vendor for vendor labor issues)

 

[Voyager6]

The amount of the "damage" and wages levied tells me this has to be a marginal case at best. If there was some meat to it we would be reading about it, such as unsafe installs or something that DISH was notified of and did nothing about. If a vendor is ripping off DISH, and DISH chooses not to do anything I fail to see how that rises to any action, unless of course safety was involved, or illegal use of labor perhaps. (Though if a vendor I don't know that DISH has an obligation to investigate or drop a vendor for vendor labor issues)

This was a retaliation against a whistle-blowing employee case not an unsafe labor or work practice case. Somehow OSHA enforces some provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley.

 

[ncted]

I've seen many cases where a company I used to work for was forced to pay a vendor for work which was never done because the owner or manager of the vendor was buddy-buddy with an executive at my company. The SOX provision is probably to prevent Enron-like shell companies from hiding profits/losses by moving funds around in a seemingly valid way, if I had to guess.

 

[Tampa8]

This was a retaliation against a whistle-blowing employee case not an unsafe labor or work practice case. Somehow OSHA enforces some provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Yes, my point was however, if someone is ripping off DISH and DISH wants to allow it, whistleblower or not, unless it did have to do with safety how is it actionable. If it got to the point the employee was making waves for something DISH was not themselves doing, maybe DISH was giving him/her a hard time, but not because they are whistleblower. There has to be component of the story missing.

 

[rglore]

Typical, someone around you is taking kickbacks or a co-worker or a friend or relative of the boss is scamming the company. You report it and now you are the bad guy for rocking the boat. Manager hates you and you end up screwed or without a job.

 

[mike123abc]

Yes, my point was however, if someone is ripping off DISH and DISH wants to allow it, whistleblower or not, unless it did have to do with safety how is it actionable. If it got to the point the employee was making waves for something DISH was not themselves doing, maybe DISH was giving him/her a hard time, but not because they are whistleblower. There has to be component of the story missing.

Dish is a publicly traded company. If they are knowingly giving money/kickbacks/whatever to friends and family companies using company monies it is a crime. If you as an individual want to be ripped off that is your business. Dish was allowing this to be done with money that belongs to shareholders.

 

[Tampa8]

That's quite a jump from the story in the link, submitting fraudulant work orders. It isn't even clear that DISH did or did not do something about it. As Scott would say, my Gut tells me if your version was even close, the fines etc.. would be far more if DISH knowingly did or allowed what you surmise.

 

[mike123abc]

That's quite a jump from the story in the link, submitting fraudulant work orders. It isn't even clear that DISH did or did not do something about it. As Scott would say, my Gut tells me if your version was even close, the fines etc.. would be far more if DISH knowingly did or allowed what you surmise.

You are making the mistake of saying Dish did it. Dish did not have a shareholder vote to pay for fraudulent work orders. The company doing the fraud should be pursued by Dish to recover the money. Whoever was in charge of the account, if they knowing did this should be prosecuted criminally. It is a crime to steal from your employer.

Look at it this way, lets say you owned a business. One of your managers was allowing his brother in law to submit false invoices to your company, and you were paying them, not knowing that they were fraudulent. Would you really think that it was not a crime? How about if your manager was giving his brother in law merchandise to sell on ebay (slight variation on brother in law shorting orders)?

If others were involved at Dish they should all be pursued by Dish both by referring them to law enforcement for prosecution and civilly to recover the money. Dish itself was not agreeing to be defrauded, it was a group of one or more people in Dish that were doing it.

 

[Tampa8]

I agree, what I'm not seeing is someone from DISH (knowingly) assisting in the fraud.

 

[dvrexpander]

Dish screwing over an employee?? OMG!!


happens everyday...

 

[Kagato]

I agree, what I'm not seeing is someone from DISH (knowingly) assisting in the fraud.

It's not OSHA's job to investigate that. Their job is to determine if an employee was retaliated against for making a whistleblower report. Employees are required to follow due diligence and report violations (real, potential, or otherwise) under SOX. The company is barred from retaliation. The alleged fraud is irrelevant because that's not what Dish is getting fined for.

If there was a criminal fraud that took place it will be referred to the DOJ, SEC, State AG, etc. for further investigation.

 

[Tampa8]

I get that, going back to my original question, if DISH harrassed the employee, was it really because of whistleblowing, or because the employee did not like the result of his report and continued to push about it? There is some component of the story missing that might answer that.

 

[Kagato]

I get that, going back to my original question, if DISH harrassed the employee, was it really because of whistleblowing, or because the employee did not like the result of his report and continued to push about it? There is some component of the story missing that might answer that.

Unless Dish appeals in court we'll never know. Dish doesn't seem to be talking so everything is speculation.