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WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently published an interim final rule establishing procedures and timeframes for handling employee retaliation complaints under the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act, enacted Dec. 23, 2020.
The departments of Labor and Justice will collaborate to enforce CAARA to ensure protection of whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting potential criminal antitrust violations or engaging in other protected activities. These activities include testifying, participating or assisting in certain federal government investigations or proceedings. Protected reports include providing information to an employer or the federal government relating to price fixing, bid rigging or market allocation schemes between competitors, or information relating to violations of other criminal laws committed in conjunction with potential violations of the criminal antitrust laws or in conjunction with a Justice Department investigation of potential violations of those laws.
Under President Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, the department is working with other agencies, including the Department of Justice, to prohibit anti-competitive behavior by employers. Such conduct hurts workers by weakening their bargaining power, lowers wages and widens inequality.
OSHA is accepting comments from the public. Submit comments online, identified by Docket Number OSHA-2021-0011 at the Federal eRulemaking Portal. The deadline for submitting comments is April 23, 2023. The interim final rule became effective Feb. 10, 2023.
For additional details about the statute along with instructions on how to file a complaint with OSHA under the CAARA, read the fact sheet on Whistleblower Protection for Reporting Criminal Antitrust Violations.
OSHA enforces the whistleblower provisions of more than 20 statutes protecting employees who report violations of various workplace safety and health, airline, commercial motor carrier, consumer product, environmental, financial reform, food safety, health insurance reform, motor vehicle safety, nuclear, pipeline, public transportation agency, railroad, maritime, securities, tax, criminal antitrust and anti-money laundering laws. For more information on whistleblower protections, visit OSHA's Whistleblower Protection Programs webpage.
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