Why are whistleblower rights necessary for consumer safety laws?
Federal inspectors are hopelessly overextended, and cannot possibly catch product safety violations proactively. The only way this law will matter in practice is through help by whistleblowers who serve as the public’s eyes and ears. But right now they can be fired at will for disclosing safety violations to regulators, the public, or even as messengers of bad news within their own companies. To illustrate, in the absence of rights whistleblowers have been fired or harassed out of their jobs for challenging the following misconduct with life and death consequences: · brittle plastic that could maim/kill infants in stationary play centers if it snaps; · light fixtures flunking federal safety standards and sold without prior testing; · continued sales of faulty home furnace ignition devices that already had caused a fire; · sales of faulty wiring that turned smoke detectors into fire hazards; · refusal to recall child safety products despite tests where subgroups of consumers relying on
