top
Labor & Workers
Labor & Workers
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

American Whistleblower, Test America, Hunters Point Shipyard Cover-up and Michael Madry

by Chris P. Bacon
A major cover-up of the Hunters Point shipyard was the falsification of asbestos tests by Test America formerly owned by H.I.G. Capital whose owners were also bundling money to Hillary Clinton. They fired Test America Quality Assurance Manager Michael Madry who blew the whistle
sm_madry_mike_at_test_america_office_.jpg
American Whistleblower, Test America, Hunters Point Shipyard Cover-up and Michael Madry

By Chris P. Bacon


TestAmerica Environmental Services, LLC is a business engaged in interstate commerce that provides innovative technical expertise and comprehensive analytical testing services, whose corporate headquarters is located at 455 Pennsylvania Ave. Suite 205, Fort Washington, PA 19034. Specialty analyses include source and ambient air, aquatic toxicity, explosives, specialty organics, dioxins, drinking water, waste water, sediments and tissues, emerging contaminants, radiochemistry and mixed waste testing.


In 2003 TestAmerica was taken over by H.I.G. Capital, a Private Equity alternative investment firm that operates a family of private equity and growth capital / venture capital funds as well as credit and real estate funds focusing on leveraged buyouts, management buyouts and leveraged recapitalizations of established and profitable manufacturing and service companies as well as growth capital investments in less mature companies. H.I.G. has links to Bain Capital, and the owners of H.I.G. Capital were also bundlers for the campaign of Mitt Romney in the last election.


As the largest leading environmental testing firm in the United States, TestAmerica’s operations include a nationwide network of 36 environmental testing laboratories, 31 service centers, as well as other additional affiliated operations. These include EMLab P&K, LLC., the self proclaimed leader in analytical microscopy and indoor air quality testing; QED Environmental Systems, Inc., the leading supplier of groundwater sampling equipment and remediation pumping systems; TestAmerica Drilling Corp., provider of innovative environmental and geotechnical drilling, and TestAmerica Air Emissions Corp. (METCO Environmental), specializing in air emissions testing.


From May 2008 until July 2011, Michael Madry was the Western Regional Quality Assurance Manager and Health and Safety Coordinator at EMLab P&K. As part of the Products and Services Division of TestAmerica, EMLab P&K is the largest commercial indoor air quality (IAQ) laboratory in North America, operating 14 fee for service laboratories located at various locations throughout the United States that specialize in the analysis of air and surface samples for mold, fungi, bacteria, asbestos, radon, and allergens.


In June of 2008, EMLab P&K President Belinda Vega, in an effort to increase efficiency and productivity, abdicated the use of what is known as a “speedpad” when analyzing samples suspected of containing asbestos. The software in these devices can be programmed to emulate any keyboard function or keyboard macro and deliver a set of pre-programmed values into the Laboratory’s electronic bench record, such as the optical properties data for asbestos fibers.


In December 2008, a National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) auditor noted that sample load at the EMLab P&K San Bruno, California Laboratory was a concern. Analysts were analyzing 100 plus samples per day, and the auditor suggested that the Laboratory review whether or not this was impacting the quality of the data being generated.


When Madry and other members of the Quality Assurance Department followed up on the auditor’s request and investigated, they concluded that some analysts were using these devices to auto-populate a default set of optical properties data for the particular asbestos type rather than actually taking the time to measure the true values.


They would also discover upon further investigation that analysts were using the speedpad device in conjunction with another program imbedded in the Laboratory’s LIMS system called the “Modify by Copy Function”. This program allowed the results from the analysis of an asbestos sample within a project to be copied or cloned, including the results from any associated duplicate and replicate quality control samples.


In early 2009 Madry and the other members of the Quality Assurance Department began to note serious issues with the reliability of the data attributed to the use of the speedpads, including false negatives, false positives, misidentified asbestos types, and the recording of the incorrect optical properties for Chrysotile, the most common type of asbestos encountered in samples.


The carcinogenic effects of all six recognized Asbestos types are well documented in the scientific literature. Asbestos poses a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly tested, treated, stored, transported, disposed of or otherwise managed. Exposure may cause or significantly contribute to an increase in mortality or serious irreversible or incapacitating illness because of its quantity, concentration, physical or chemical characteristics. It is also listed as a hazardous air pollutant by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act.


During Madry’s tenure as a Quality Assurance Manager, the EMLab P&K Laboratories located in San Bruno California, Orange County California, Cherry Hill New Jersey, San Diego California, Phoenix Arizona, Fort Lauderdale Florida, and Fort Worth Texas were all accredited by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) to perform analyses of bulk samples of building materials taken for the identification and quantification of asbestos via Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM) using the 1982 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Interim Method for the Determination of Asbestos in Bulk Insulation Samples (EPA 600/M4-82-020). 40 CFR, Part 763, Appendix E to Subpart E and as such, they must comply with the requirements of the [NVLAP] accreditation program as specified under 15 U.S.C. §2646(d)(3) of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA).


The disagreement of the minds over the use of the speedpad became a source of constant tension and conflict during 2009 due to EMLab P&K’s inability to meet profit expectations in a fiercely competitive market and Vega’s goals of increasing productivity and decreasing production costs in an attempt to meet those profit expectations via her almost fanatical, religious adherence to the philosophy of doing more with less (Lean Six-Sigma).


When Madry and other members of the Quality Assurance Department pointed out that “computerized systems that provide default optical measurements do not meet NVLAP requirements”, EMLab P&K President Belinda Vega and Western Regional Laboratory Director Kamash Ramanathan continued to resist adherence to the applicable regulatory provisions and took actions to frustrate compliance by refusing to discontinue their use, with Vega arguing that the speed-pads were analogous to “computer keyboards” and that “speedpad” devices were not specifically prohibited by NVLAP, only the auto-population of default values.


In June 2009 Madry, after perceiving no improvement on environmental compliance issues, reasonably relied on and utilized TestAmerica’s internal grievance procedure to his detriment and harm, both pecuniary and otherwise, essentially committing “political suicide” by attempting to go toe-to-toe with Vega and Ramanathan when he escalated his complaints about them up the chain of command to TestAmerica Director of Quality and Client Advocacy Ray Frederici. Madry alleged that Vega and Ramanathan were impeding the Quality Assurance Department’s ability to effect environmental compliance at EMLab P&K and were frustrating their efforts to implement quality programs.


However Frederici cleverly seized upon the opportunity to engage in damage control via the creative presentation of the facts, “spinning” Madry’s report that Vega and Ramanathan were preventing the independent and uninhibited observing, assessing, and reporting on operational activities by QA staff into a palatable story where his supervisor, EMLab P&K’s Director of Quality Assurance, Dr. Ed Kot, was the protagonist, and conducted a sham or biased investigation into Madry’s whistleblower disclosures which was controlled or heavily influenced by Vega, the same individual being accused of the misconduct.


Although TestAmerica had a written promulgated policy for complaints that prohibited retaliation, using the complaint mechanism did not necessarily guarantee that retaliation would not occur, for specious (plausibly deceptive) allegations, misrepresentation, fabrication and unwarranted use of disciplinary procedures by Vega would follow, culminating in the inevitable unfair dismissal and/or ill-health retirement of both Madry and his supervisor.


Madry’s concerns about environmental compliance being frustrated by EMLab P&K Upper Management can be traced as far back as 2007. EMLab P&K had a storied history of resisting adherence to applicable regulatory provisions and taking action to frustrate compliance, and Madry, as well as other members of the Quality Assurance Department, had experienced continuous friction with EMLab P&K Upper Management whenever environmental issues arose that they believed needed to be addressed.


However beginning in July 2009, their work situation began to deteriorate noticeably, particularly in response to their efforts to bring EMLab P&K into compliance with its accreditation program requirements and their insistence on that compliance.


Through no fault of their own, they soon found themselves caught up in a hostile and intimidating working environment driven by “time, numbers, and crises” where EMLab P&K President Belinda Vega’s goals of production and profit were sought at the expense of human health and welfare.


Gossip and criticism were the norm and cliques had lead to favoritism and feuding. Not only did they have to deal with incompetent staff that was held in high regard, personality conflicts, widespread personal agendas and poor management practices, but also a lack of motivation and low-quality work.


Ensuing events further exacerbated the Quality Assurance Team’s efforts to bring EMLab P&K into compliance when to add insult to injury, EMLab P&K President Belinda Vega decided that she did not need to follow TestAmerica’s own policies, practices and procedures with regard to its own disciplinary and performance review processes, and instead utilized them for self-serving and improper motives and reasons, and to otherwise obtain a collateral benefit from said processes, when she placed EMLab P&K Director of Quality Assurance Dr. Kot under her close supervision via the guise of a “performance improvement plan”.


In October 2009 TestAmerica Director of Quality and Client Advocacy Ray Frederici, relying on his own misapprehensions, reported to TestAmerica Upper Management via an email that the productivity gains being observed at the EMLab P&K San Bruno, California Laboratory were not attributed to the use of the speedpad device per se but were actually the result of the application of “Lean” processes, and he closes out his investigation into the matter.


Despite the fact that EMLab P&K had received a 2006 non-conformance for using a computerized system to provide default optical measurements, Frederici concluded that no circumvention of any of the applicable NVLAP regulatory provisions was taking place in order to maximize sample output. However because his investigation process was biased and dysfunctional the results were meaningless, and instead of improved morale, EMLab P&K now ended up with an even more cynical QA Team.


Whereas previously the Quality Assurance Department’s ability to observe, assess and report on operational activities was “severely” inhibited by Vega, they now found that they were virtually unable to think and act independently and had to have all of their work reviewed and approved by her. This reporting relationship adversely affected the environmental compliance status of the Laboratory, for it was not effective to have the Quality Assurance Department placed under the direction of Operations, the same organization it was required to review and regulate. Madry found this to be analogous to the “fox guarding the hen house”.


While Vega was quick to delegate accountability fro failures, the members of the Quality Assurance Team found that they lacked any authority to take alternative actions that would have lead to success or at least to the mitigation of those failures. Thus “accountability” became another weapon in Vega’s overall pattern of harassment.


Vega’s disapproval of the Quality Assurance Department’s repeated insistence on environmental compliance and its efforts to obtain that compliance reached its boiling point in March 2010 when she suddenly and unexpectedly traveled to the EMLab P&K Phoenix, Arizona Laboratory and presented Dr. Kot with an unsatisfactory performance evaluation, then demoted him from his position as EMLab P&K’s Quality Assurance Director.


Vega had never been comfortable with Dr. Kot as EMLab P&K’s Director of Quality Assurance from the onset, and it seemed like it was an opportune moment for her to move him aside in favor of someone who would pursue her almost fanatical religious adherence to the philosophy of doing more with less (Lean Six Sigma) rather than concerns about bringing the Laboratory into environmental compliance.


Although Vega would not provide Madry or EMLab P&K Eastern Regional Quality Assurance Manager Claudia Palermo with any specifics as to what lead to her management system changes, she stated that as a result that there would be “additional leadership, mentoring, support and improved communication”. However as Madry would soon discover, Vega’s spoken philosophy would not match day-to-day events.


Madry, as well as EMLab P&K Eastern Regional Quality Assurance Manager Claudia Palermo, communicated to their frustration to their new Supervisor, EMLab P&K Director of Quality and Lean Six Sigma Jennifer Shim, that clear cut compliance issues were not being handled properly by EMLab P&K Upper Management, as well as the “many, many recommendations that were constantly being ignored”.


Madry took the “ensure compliance” language very literally and was of the opinion that it meant that he was going to ensure compliance by the identification of departures from the management system and/or from the procedures for performing tests and/or calibrations and the recommendation and implementation of those action(s) most likely to eliminate the problem(s) and prevent recurrence.


However time and time again Madry found himself caught between a “rock and a hard place” when he had to make recommendations based on regulatory and legal requirements to keep the Laboratory in compliance that conflicted with Vega’s management concepts. He was hired for his expertise and experience which he attempted to use to develop a quality program at the Laboratory, but under Vega, and due to the lack of action by EMLab P&K Western Regional Laboratory Director Kamash Ramanathan, he soon concluded that under Shim’s supervision he was no longer being used for his expertise, in that many of EMLab P&K’s compliance programs were reverting back to what they were before he was hired.


After Madry expressed that EMLab P&K Upper Management’s lack of support for Quality Programs was a major factor in continued noncompliance at the Laboratory, Vega and her posse of sycophants immediately sprang into action, keeping Madry “out of the loop” with regard to important workplace discussions and secretly gathering “evidence” in order to brand him as a chronic problem worker, compiling records about any trivial incident, real or contrived, that conveyed inadequate or problematic performance, attacking the his motives, credibility, professional competence, and virtually anything else that would cloud the real issues that were raised.


Although it is a violation of TestAmerica’s ethics policy to make false statements to, or seek to otherwise deceive members of Management or their representatives, agents, or client and customers, in any aspect of an employee’s job, including timekeeping, accounting, and compliance with all safety, environmental, and employment regulations, Madry would also quickly discover that aggressively promoted company values didn’t seem to match day to day events when on July 22, 2010 EMLab P&K President Belinda Vega launched a baseless, vindictive campaign to smear him.


Subjecting Madry to what any reasonable manager in his position would have viewed as “career ending action”, Vega proceeded to make false accusations of misconduct to TestAmerica Upper Management, effectively locking him into a position from which no relief seemingly could be obtained by impeding Madry’s ability to fairly compete for any position for which he was qualified and restricting the departments within which Madry could possibly be reassigned.


On September 2, 2010 EMLab P&K President Belinda Vega (and later Madry would learn TestAmerica Senior Human Resources Manager Betty Counts) traveled across state lines to the Phoenix, Arizona Laboratory where Madry was based under the guise of supposedly discussing what he was previously lead to believe were concerns about his current hostile working environment.


Instead, with the assistance and backing of Counts, (and later he learned TestAmerica Human Resources Director Nancy Ploof), Vega proceeded to administer Madry a negatively biased interim surprise “performance appraisal” that included, among other things, a “performance improvement” plan stipulating he was being placed under the “close supervision” of Vega, as well as a requirement to have a psychological assessment.


Vega had previously employed a similar tactic with great success by taking the same approach when a different employee, EMLab P&K Director of Quality Assurance Dr. Kot, was adamant in pursuing environmental compliance. Unbeknownst to Madry at the time, Dr. Kot had filed a Whistleblower retaliation complaint on April 23, 2010 in response to Vega’s actions.


By the end of September 2010 Vega’s behavior coupled with TestAmerica’s Human Resources Department’s refusal to take any action to investigate his internal retaliation complaints against Vega had affected Madry’s mental and or physical health to such an extreme that his only way to change his workplace environment was to change employers or even leave the workplace despite lacking alternative job prospects.


A doctor who examined him advised Madry not to return to work at the laboratory where he had been employed, and after his sick leave and vacation time ran out, Vega, whose actions caused his precarious mental health condition according to the uncontroverted medical evidence of record, would later seize upon his medically prescribed inability to perform his duties on a full-time basis as the grounds upon which to propose his removal.


On September 29, 2010 Madry filed a retaliation complaint with the Region IX Office of the Occupation Safety Division under the Whistleblower (or employee protection provisions) of five of the six environmental statutes. Madry alleged that Vega and other TestAmerica and EMLab P&K Management had subjected him to the above mentioned adverse actions because of the friction that had developed due to his conscientious and vigorous enforcement of the environmental statutes.


Madry’s case was immediately assigned to Federal OSHA Region IX Investigator and lawyer Darrell Whitman. Whitman, quite coincidentally, was also assigned to investigate a similar complaint filed on April 23, 2010 by EMLab P&K Quality Assurance Director Dr. Ed Kot, and Madry agreed to be a cooperating witness in Kot’s investigation.


In April of 2011 Whitman concluded his thorough investigation of Madry’s complaint and found that there was sufficient legal evidence and reasonable cause to believe that TestAmerica and EMLab P&K violated the Whistleblower protection provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Clean Air Act when they created a hostile working environment, forcing Madry’s constructive discharge in retaliation for his repeated insistence on adherence to the Laboratory’s accreditation policies and his efforts to obtain that compliance.


At the same time, Whitman also came to a similar conclusion in Dr. Kot’s complaint, finding that there was sufficient legal evidence and reasonable cause to believe that TestAmerica and EMLab P&K had violated the Whistleblower protection provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Clean Air Act when they created a hostile working environment and demoted him from his position as EMLab P&K Quality Assurance Director for pointing out lapses in EMLab’s Quality Management System.


Shortly thereafter, in July 2011, the Washington Office categorized both Madry’s and Kot’s complaints as “significant”, leading Madry and Kot to believe that they could expect a high level of media interest when OSHA issued its Secretary’s findings and press release.

However, Whitman’s supervisor, OSHA Region IX Supervisory Investigator Joshua Paul, proceeded to sit on Madry’s Final Investigative Report for over a year without taking any action. In the interim, EMLab P&K and TestAmerica made a decision to resolve and settle Dr. Kot’s claims, a well calculated legal maneuver that would later prove beneficial to throwing up hurdles to any resolution of Madry’s complaint.

In June 2012, with no apparent movement in his case, Madry began to complain to OSHA Region IX Administrator Ken Atha and Region IX Assistant Regional Administrator of Enforcement Programs James Wulff that OSHA Region IX Supervisory Investigator Joshua Paul was mishandling his whistleblower complaint by failing to show due diligence in adjudicating Mr. Whitman’s findings.

Rather than defend this worker who put his career on the line for the safety of the public, OSHA Region IX Administrator Ken Atha and Region IX Assistant Regional Administrator of Enforcement Programs James Wulff instituted an inadequate response to Madry’s grievances and requests for assistance and treated him as adversarial.


After Madry decided to take his complaint directly to OSHA Region IX Supervisory Investigator Joshua Paul, who was also a lawyer, he found that Paul was a thin skinned individual who took offense at the slightest perceived affronts. Literally within hours of Madry’s complaint, Mr. Paul proceeded to direct Region IX Investigator Darrell Whitman to rewrite Madry’s Final Investigative Report to reflect a finding of non-merit, which is a federal felony.



Whitman steadfastly refused to follow OSHA Region IX Supervisory Investigator Joshua Paul’s unlawful directive to rewrite Madry’s Final Investigative Report, and instead notified Madry of the ensuing issues. Both individual’s immediately complained up the chain of command to then Secretary of Labor Sandra Dillion and Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels, who, similarly to OSHA Region IX Administrator Ken Atha and Region IX Assistant Regional Administrator of Enforcement Programs James Wulff, also instituted an inadequate response to their grievances and requests for assistance.


When Madry finally did receive his merit Secretary’s Findings on November 1, 2012, more than two years after the filing of his original complaint, what he found was shocking. His “significant” complaint had suddenly become “insignificant”.


Not only had he been awarded less than a make whole remedy, there would be no press release as had been previously promised, and there would be no assessment of punitive damages despite EMLab P&K’s pattern of retaliation against whistleblowers.


In OSHA Whistleblower complaints, reinstatement of the complainant to his or her former position is the presumptive remedy in merit cases and is a critical component of making the complainant whole, but is not always feasible.


This was true in Madry’s case, as he had made an objectively reasonable decision not to return to EMLab P&K due to (1) the manifest hostility and irreparable animosity under which a productive and amicable working relationship would be impossible; (2) the fact that Madry’s former position had been filled in February 2011 and did not exist; (3) EMLab P&K/TestAmerica’s insistence that Madry was terminated for cause; (4) EMLab P&K/TestAmerica’s statement that they would not have handled the situation any differently, and (5) the fact that the personnel responsible for the retaliation and or discrimination were still employed by the company.


However, Whitman’s original investigative findings had also been rewritten to exclude Madry’s constructive discharge, and as a result, Madry was precluded from receiving front pay in lieu of reinstatement from the date of his constructive discharge up to point where he would have reasonably expected to have remained in his former position.


As a result of OSHA Region IX’s mishandling of Madry’s complaint, he was now was faced with a long uphill battle associated with the appeals process and a hearing before Department of Labor Administrative Law Judge.


But what is even more troubling is that the mishandling of Madry’s whistleblower complaint was not an isolated incident but part of a larger trend indicative of a much more serious problem, at least at the OSHA Region IX Office. During the same time, Whitman and other investigators in that office were also having similar issues with other merit whistleblower determinations where Region IX management attempted to change or suppress their final investigative reports. After complaining to Secretary of Labor Tom Perez in July 2014, Agency management began to bully and harass Whitman, placing him on administrative leave and eventually terminating his employment on May 5, 2015.



THE HUNTER’S POINT SUPERFUND SITE


H.I.G. Capital, which owns TestAmerica, appears to have not only violated OSHA Whistleblower regulations but also regulations of the EPA, yet top Federal officials have refused to take action to make them accountable and protect the public from exposure to asbestos and other toxic materials.


One such issue involved a perspective bid by the TestAmerica Sacramento, California Laboratory for compliance testing to be undertaken at the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard.


The Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard (also known as the Treasure Island Naval Station-Hunters Point Annex) is located in southeastern San Francisco, California, adjacent to San Francisco Bay in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood.


Much of the soil at the Shipyard originated from grading and flattening the nearby hills containing rock and soil known as Serpentinite, which contains naturally occurring asbestos. In 1989, EPA placed the Shipyard on its National Priority List (NPL) which is a list of Federal Superfund Sites in the United States. “Superfund” is the colloquial name of the CERCLA program that, through technical assistance and funding grants, helps the states to identify and clean up hazardous and toxic waste disposal sites [42 U.S.C.A. § 9611].


The cleanup program at the Shipyard is being conducted by the Navy pursuant to the Installation Restoration Program, a federally funded program established by the Department of Defense (DOD) to identify, investigate, and control the migration of hazardous substances at military and other DOD facilities. The Navy is the lead agency responsible for the investigation and cleanup of the Shipyard in accordance with the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). The EPA is the lead regulatory agency.


In October 2009 Madry learned that the TestAmerica Sacramento, California Laboratory was planning on using the EMLab P&K San Bruno, California Laboratory for an asbestos sampling and analysis plan for the Navy for a project at the Hunter’s Point Shipyard.


Madry pointed out that the San Bruno, California Laboratory was not a qualified subcontractor, in that effective October 1, 2009 laboratories seeking to perform testing in support of Department of Defense (DoD) Environmental Restoration (ER) programs must be accredited under DoD ELAP program requirements. Additionally, EMLab P&K did not meet and or could not comply with the majority of the requirements in the DoD Quality Systems Manual for Environmental Laboratories.


EMLab P&K Upper Management had a storied history of resisting adherence to applicable regulatory provisions and taking action to frustrate compliance, and this was no exception. Despite the fact that a January 2010 internal audit of EMLab P&K’s Management System by TestAmerica Quality Assessment Manager Pamela Schemmer confirmed that Madry was indeed correct, in April 2010 EMLab P&K Western Regional Laboratory Director Kamash Ramanathan reported that San Bruno would accept and analyze samples sent from Hunter’s Point.


Madry likened the situation to the “conduct of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity”, in that the recipients of the data from analyses conducted at these sites relied on the accuracy of the results to make important health and financial decisions. Over $10 billion dollars is being invested by Lennar Urban for the development of these hazardous sites and other health and safety inspectors were retaliated against for challenging the faulty methods of the inspections.


Darrell Whitman documented the systemic violation of OSHA protection for whistleblowers by managers of OSHA and sent voluminous material to Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels and to U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez.


Instead of taking action to enforce the law and hold responsible the systemic criminal violation of Federal laws, these top Labor Department and OSHA officials continued to do damage control for companies such as EMLab P&K/Test American/H.I.G. Capital and proceeded with the termination of Federal OSHA lawyer Darrell Whitman.


TestAmerica and EMLab state that the reason for the adverse actions against Madry was made after considering his deteriorating relationships, attitude and performance, but as the evidentiary record would show, any alleged ‘personality’ problem or deficiency of interpersonal skills was reducible in essence to the problem of the inconvenience caused by Madry’s pattern of complaints. On October 28, 2015, in response to EMLab P&K’s attempt to dismiss Madry’s complaint via a summary judgment, Federal Administrative Judge Steven B. Berlin found the motion without merit, ruling:


“Drawing all reasonable inferences in Madry’s favor, it appears not only possible, but likely, that Vega viewed Madry as an annoyance, who threatened profits with his complaints about a lab she had been associated with for years, when Madry was a newcomer brought in through the merger.”


https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/10/28/18779351.php


THE FAILURE OF THE WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION PROGRAM


The OSHA Whistleblower Protection program fails to acknowledge that employees who identify potential violations of regulatory and statutory provisions play an important role in the regulatory process. Employers actually gain from being given an early opportunity to correct problems without government intervention, and the government is relieved from the need to commit its limited resources to investigating and resolving problems that could be informally corrected. Instead the current system treats complainants as adversaries rather than entitling them to the refutable presumption that they are attempting to apply ethical principles in the face of obstacles in order to avoid the negative connotations found in other words such as “informer” “snitch” or “rat”. It is time that these Federal officials are held accountable for neglecting to follow through and do their jobs.


For Madry, stepping forward and doing the right thing did not come without a high price. Not only has TestAmerica persisted and pursued a vindictive vendetta against him using self-evidently false evidence or information, even after this was brought to their attention, but the system that was enacted to protect whistleblowers also failed him. His case is not an isolated one, but part of a larger trend indicative of a much more serious problem.



Following his constructive discharge, he has struggled to find further employment due to a damaged reputation, poor references and blacklisting. The social impact of whistleblowing through loss of livelihood and family strain has also had an impact. Madry has experienced immense stress as a result of litigation regarding detriments such as unfair dismissal, and faced imperfect support or no support at all from government agencies. As previously mentioned, Madry has faced long battles with the Department of Labor, which has blocked access to documents in his investigative file needed to support his case and has thrown up other roadblocks and hurdles in his pursuit of his claims.
§Lennar Homes Were Built On Contaminated Land
by Chris P. Bacon
sm_hunters_point_shipyard_housing_banner.jpg
Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein were all personally responsible for covering up the falsification of testing by Test America and Tetra Tech and then allowing these companies to illegally retaliate against the whistleblowers
Add Your Comments
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network