Lunsford Community College Attacks and Rebuttals - 2000

 

These were year 2000 issues raised and rebutted.

 

Issues raised by Jack Lunsford of MCCCD, as major problems with SB1512

A.   Oral disclosure - should such disclosures give protection to the discloser?

Jack Lunsford said serious problems should be in writing.

 

Answer: We would be happy to change the 30-day limit for reducing and disclosure to 5 days, 10 days, or whatever period is reasonable. A major importance of oral disclosure is to promote exposure of real problems to management, and thus nip problems in the bud - oral disclosure promotes communication about problems.

 

B.   Protecting "applicants" from reprisals due to whistle blowing.

 

Jack Lunsford said: "This will raise large problems with a number of applicants who are not hired.  They will then make disclosures and claim reprisal in non-hiring."

 

Answer: (1) the need to protect "applicants" comes from the need to prevent blacklisting.  If someone is fired as a reprisal for whistle-blowing, blacklisting would prevent them from getting a subsequent job.

 

(2) Protection for "applicants" has never been a problem at the federal level. There are only a miniscule number of claims by "applicants". The federal administrators have never had a problem with protection of "applicants" and no amendments have been proposed to change this.

 

C.  The "reasonable belief" definition

 

Jack Lunsford indicated that mere intuition could be grounds for blowing the whistle and claiming protection against negative personnel actions.

 

Answer: It would make no difference if "reasonable belief" were taken out of the bill. This is because the term "evidences" [where reprisal is prohibited if an employee makes a disclosure which the employee reasonably believes evidences wrongdoing] means credible evidence as defined by case law, and this is actually the definition of "reasonable belief." Reasonable belief is actually defined very well by years of tested case law, and mere intuition would never come under "reasonable belief."