DISH Network to Pay More Than $250,000 to Former Blacklisted Employee
OSHA has ordered the company to pay the employee in wages and damages following an investigation.
OSHA has ordered cable network company DISH to pay a former employee $257,000 in back wages and damages following an investigation that found the company in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, according to a news release from the agency. The investigation found the company violated the act's anti-retaliatory provisions after it blacklisted the former employee for reporting a vendor who was submitting fraudulent invoices and testifying at a deposition.
DISH will have to pay $157,024 in back wages and $100,000 in compensatory damages. The employee worked in DISH's marketing department from March 2007 to November 2008. In summer 2008, his superior was notified of the complaint. In August 2011, the man filed a complaint with OSHA for allegedly being blacklisted by DISH three times after leaving the DISH network. The blacklisting came in the form of negative job references, DISH’s refusal to do business with the complainant's subsequent employer, and DISH's refusal to carry a channel after the company realized the complainant represented the channel.
OSHA found the former DISH employee's complaints valid and has ordered the company to pay wages, damages, and attorneys' fees. The agency has also asked DISH to "expunge his employment record of any reference to his exercising his rights under Sarbanes-Oxley; not retaliate or discriminate in any way against the complainant; and post a notice in a place visible to employees about their whistleblower rights."