ABSTRACT
Whistleblowing is the act of going over the head of the organization to the public or to some other authority and reporting that the organization is not serving the public or its customers properly. The failure to serve may be a case of not provid ing sufficient safety; a case where the customer or the public is being grossly overcharged for the product or service; or a situation where waste is rampant. [The term whistleblowing may come from the sports arena where the referee blows a whistle as a signal that the game is stopped for an infraction of the rules.]
Engineers, auditors, quality control personnel, and others may blow the whis tle. One of the most celebrated cases involved A. Ernest Fitzgerald, a cost analyst for the U.S. Air Force who found that there were large cost overruns in conjunc tion with contracts on large cargo planes. He reviewed his findings with his superi ors and was instructed to forget the situation. He felt that he owed his fellow citizens a duty. Therefore Fitzgerald went public with his findings. The response of his superiors was more than displeasure with his actions. He was disciplined, suspended, and fired. This case is well documented. There were legal actions taken in his defense and ultimately he was restored to duty. His supervisors were reportedly still not happy with his activities and did everything within their power to make his job difficult to perform and as boring as possible. The Fitzgerald case surfaced in 1969 and was not settled until 1982.
