This week’s update featured labor and employment attorneys Rosemarie Cipparulo and David Tykulsker discussing whistleblower protections in New Jersey, including the Conscientious Employees Protection Act (CEPA). 130 participants joined us for the discussion.
Rose and David gave us an overview of the law and discussed its relationship to other available remedies and protections. We learned: that to qualify for CEPA protection the specifics of the correction required must be first submitted in writing to one’s employer or agency; that the situation to be corrected must be in violation of an existing law or binding regulation (such as the governor’s recent executive orders or the new law prohibiting the dismissal of employees who miss work for medically-recommended COVID-related reasons); that CEPA specifically protects a complainant or whistleblower against retaliation; that it protects both private and public sector workers; and, that its protections must be invoked within one year of the last retaliatory act suffered. We also learned how union grievance procedures and collective actions can often get results much quicker than a whistleblower complaint; and, that while a CEPA complaint supersedes a union grievance, an NLRB, OSHA, PEOSH, or other official complaint can be filed concurrently.
