Why are employees reluctant to speak up about improprieties where they work? Retaliation is feared, as a municipal employee in Florida is claiming in a lawsuit.

Danilo Benedit, a procurement supervisor for the city of Coral Gables, wore a wire to help police investigate the city manager’s cover-up of questionable credit card charges.

Now he’s filed a lawsuit claiming the city violated the Florida whistle-blower laws that protect government employees who report illegal activities.

Benedit hasn’t been fired from his job, but he claims he’s been subjected to an increasingly hostile work environment, according to the Miami Herald.

His lawsuit lists a five-month delay in his performance evaluation and receiving his first negative one ever as retaliatory acts against him.

Benedit also claims he’s been ostracized by co-workers and has been unable to complete his job functions because they are keeping critical information from him.

The lawsuit alleges the city posted an ad for his job position.

City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera says Benedit’s job was downgraded from a director’s position to an officer position similar to what had been done in another department. He added that Benedit was allowed to apply for the new position.

Cover-up investigated

Last year, after City Manager David Brown’s credit card expenses were criticized in a local weekly paper, Brown asked Benedit to help backdate receipts that would show he reimbursed the city for two questionable charges months before he really did.

Brown was charged with a civil violation of public records laws. He resigned his city position under pressure.

Brown also asked Benedit to falsify documents related to a city project and to award a contract to a firm that wasn’t the lowest bidder.

Benedit claims his problems at work come from fellow employees who are still loyal to Brown.

A company fired a manager for not following directives from his superiors. The manager said he was protecting the company from a possible lawsuit. In the end, an e-mail spelled trouble for the company. A jury recently sided with the manager, awarding him $46.6 million.

Here’s what happened:

Ronald Luri was a waste collection manager for Republic Services, Inc., in Ohio.

The company wanted him to fire three employees, all of whom were in their early 60s or late 50s.

Luri refused, saying the company could face a lawsuit for age discrimination.

Then Republic fired him for alleged “inadequate performance and failure to follow the directives of this superiors.”

Luri claimed Republic forged records critical of his job performance, including an e-mail.

Evidence tampering key to jury’s decision

In deciding for Luri, the jurors said they were dismayed by testimony of evidence-tampering.

The jurors pointed to an e-mail attributed to Luri’s boss, Republic’s Ohio-area president. Luri’s lawyers called an IT expert who said the president postdated a memo and added two paragraphs that were critical of Luri’s job performance.

Republic’s lawyers said Luri’s allegations were “nothing more than his badly bruised ego.” The company plans to appeal.

“We wanted to send a clear message that this was unjustly done and that they tried to ruin his career,” said the jury foreman.

Another juror said, “Republic was out to get this man.”

The jury decided Luri should get $3.5 million for lost wages as general manager of Republic’s Cleveland division.

The rest of the award — $43.1 million — was in punitive damages, making it the largest verdict in Ohio history by at least $10 million.

What would you do if an employee violated a supervisor’s directives and said he was doing it to protect the company from potential lawsuits? Let us know in the comments section below.

HR managers are often the shoulder to cry on or the person to “just listen” when employees are having a tough time with their bosses. But who listens to disgruntled employees when the boss is a U.S. Congressman?

U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, NY, has a reputation as one of the toughest members of Congress to work for.

“I push people hard,” Weiner admitted in an interview with The New York Times.

Take this example: John Graff worked as a scheduler for Weiner. One day the congressman was on a routine conference call but became convinced that Graff hadn’t provided him with a crucial piece of information.

Graff was in the next room and suddenly heard Weiner yelling at him through the wall. Then, according to Graff, Weiner started pounding his fists on his desk, kicked a chair and unleashed a string of expletives.

Two weeks later, Graff resigned after a short stint working for Weiner.

The Times reports that Weiner has had more turnover of employees in his office than any other member of the New York U.S. House delegation in the last six years. About half of the congressman’s staff has been on board for less than a year. Since 2007 he’s had three chiefs of staff.

Why did the newspaper go to all the trouble to dig up this information about Weiner? Because he’s a top candidate for mayor of New York City next year.

The paper concludes Weiner’s actions as a boss of 20 or so employees in his congressional office offer clues about how he might handle New York’s 300,000 municipal workers.

Blame it on Brooklyn

Weiner’s toughness isn’t limited to occasional rants.

He’s also a technology fiend who requires little sleep and rarely takes a day off. He routinely instant messages his employees on weekends, often with one-word codes: “Teeth” means your answer reminds me of pulling teeth. “Weeds” means you’re too much in the weeds.

Even in normal conversation, Weiner speaks at a high decibel level.

Weiner blames his brusque nature on his New York roots. “When you grow up in Brooklyn, you know, sometimes arguing is the sport,” he said.

The congressman attributes the high turnover on his staff in part to the high expectations he sets for his employees.

Some former employees, including Graff, who left Weiner’s employment still have good things to say about him.

But some on the outside who have to deal with Weiner’s office say the turnover has created an air of instability.

And his constant texting has irked some. During a panel discussion on the middle class earlier this year, Weiner worked on his BlackBerry nonstop while the session was in progress.

“The clock is always ticking,” Weiner explained.

Do you have stories about difficult bosses? Let us know about them in the comments box below.

Federal officials want to send a message about employing illegal aliens in the case of a fast food franchise that employed 56 illegal aliens at its restaurants.

Two executives and the franchisee for 11 McDonald’s restaurants in the Reno, NV area pleaded guilty to felony immigration charges stemming from raids last fall.

Mack Associates, Inc., pleaded guilty to two felony counts of encouraging an alien’s unlawful residence in the United States and aiding and abetting an alien to remain in the U.S.

Authorities charged that Mack Associates employed known illegal aliens and furnished them with names and Social Security numbers belonging to others.

Mack will pay $1 million in fines, the maximum allowed by law for the two violations. The company will also be on probation for one year.

The franchise’s former vice-president, Jimmy Moore, pleaded guilty to one felony count of inducting an illegal alien to remain in the U.S. Moore faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when sentenced.

Mack’s controller, Anntoinette Richmond, has also been charged with one misdemeanor count of continuing employment of an unauthorized alien.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Nevada and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are using this case as a warning to other employers. “Companies and their managers who engage in such conduct are on notice that violations will be prosecuted and that the criminal penalties can be significant,” said U.S. Attorney for Nevada, Gregory Brower.

Among others facing charges: HR Managers

Since October 2007, ICE has made 937 criminal arrests in connection with worksite enforcement investigations.

Of those cases, 99 involve owners, managers, supervisors or human resources employees who face charges ranging from harboring to knowingly hiring illegal aliens.

During the same time period, ICE made more than 3,500 administrative arrests for immigration violations in connection with worksite investigations.

In FY 2007, ICE collected more than $31 million in criminal fines, restitution and civil judgments.

ICE was created in March 2003 by combining the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the former U.S. Customs Service to tackle immigration law violations.

Does an obviously disabled employee need to ask for accommodation before the employer’s duty to accommodate kicks in? A federal appeals court says no, the employee doesn’t need to ask for the accommodation.

Here’s what happened: 19-year-old Patrick Brady took a job as a pharmacy assistant at a Wal-Mart store in Centereach, NY. His job included stocking shelves and dispensing prescriptions. He had two years experience at a similar job at a local pharmacy.

Brady has cerebral palsy. He walked slowly with a shuffle and limp, spoke slowly and quietly, and had a poor sense of direction.

After working one day in the pharmacy, Brady perceived that his supervisor was unhappy with him. Brady says he had no trouble performing his duties, but his supervisor wanted him to work faster.

The supervisor thought Brady had trouble matching customers’ names to their prescriptions. But Brady said he didn’t have trouble at Wal-Mart or in his two previous years of experience.

At the end of his first shift, Brady asked about his schedule, and his supervisor said she’d call him. After not receiving a phone call for days, Brady went to visit the store to get his schedule. He worked two more days in the pharmacy without incident but thought his supervisor was frustrated with him.

Brady was transferred to a position collecting shopping carts in the parking lot. Then he was transferred to stocking in the food section. 

At the end of his first day in the food section, Brady was given a schedule that conflicted with his community college classes which he’d noted on Wal-Mart’s availability for work forms. Frustrated, Brady called the store and quit the next day.

Employee files lawsuit

After quitting, Brady became depressed, lost self-confidence, withdrew from his family, became angry and lost interest in his community college studies.

Then he filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, alleging a number of counts of discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

A jury found Brady was disabled under ADA and that Wal-Mart discriminated against him on the basis of his disability by transferring him from the pharmacy to the parking lot. It also found Wal-Mart had failed to reasonably accommodate him. He was awarded a total of $900,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

Wal-Mart appealed on various counts, but the Second Circuit Court upheld the lower court ruling.

The decision on one of Wal-Mart’s grounds for appeal is something other companies should take note of.

Wal-Mart argued it had no duty to accommodate Brady because he never asked to be accommodated. 

The court said Brady didn’t have to ask. The court said the ADA “speaks of accommodating ‘known’ disabilities, not just disabilities for which accommodation has been requested.”

There was no doubt Brady had a disability from his physical appearance, according to the testimony of several people during the trial.

The court has ruled previously that employers have the duty to engage in an “interactive process” with employees to assess whether a worker’s disability can be reasonably accommodated. It said Wal-Mart failed to do that.

What do you think of this case? It can be a sticky situation for an employer to take the first step and approach an employee about accommodation for a real or perceived disability. How would you have handled the supervisor who thought Brady was working too slowly even though he made no mistakes in his job? Let us know.

Has the answer ever been, “Because I laughed?”

Darra Kollios says that’s her case. She was a bartender at the Trinity Grill in Florida.

Because of her laughing, she no longer works at the bar. That much she and bar owner, Dohaeng Heo agree on. Their stories about what else happened are a bit different, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

Kollios says she was talking with a customer and laughing about something when Heo walked up.

She says Heo told her she couldn’t laugh, saying if she did so again, she’d have to leave.

Kollios says the conversation led to her firing.

Heo says since Kollios started working at the bar, she laughed loudly and often. He was worried that her behavior would disturb customers, 85% of whom are older than 60.

Heo says Kollios could still work there is she agreed to stay silent. He suggests she quit.

In any event, Kollios is now looking for another job. “If you know anybody who wants a laughing bartender, let me know,” she said.