A recent "gag order" directive from the Justice Department to immigration judges drew attention to similar policies. Image: Lightspring/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffTwo more federal agencies have been reminded that any nondisclosure directive or other “gag order” type policy must include a notice that employees remain free to make whistleblowing disclosures to Congress, inspectors general or the Office of Special Counsel.
The IG offices of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the FLRA separately issued “management alerts” that the agencies were not in compliance with that requirement under the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, noting that the failure is a “prohibited personnel practice” under civil service law.
In the former case, an IG review found that two of the five nondisclosure agreements were not in compliance—one of which failed to mention the right to make disclosures at all, and the other that only failed to mention the right to make disclosures to the OSC. In the latter, that was the case with six of the more than 60 policies, forms, agreements and notices that were reviewed.
The notices from those two IGs follow an announcement from the OSC that over the last 12 months, it has obtained more than 25 corrective actions addressing violations of the anti‐gag provision of the whistleblower law.
The most widely publicized of those was a directive from the Justice Department to immigration judges that they must follow standard policy of first clearing with management any public statements regarding immigration policy. That directive said they no longer had separate rights to speak in their roles as union officials, citing an FLRA decision to decertify the union—a decision that is being challenged. The OSC said that after it raised that issue, the department revised the directive to include the required language.
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