Whistleblowing on an Employer
I could not find the right place for my post so i'm hoping here will be ok.
I have reported the residential home I work in to the CQC. As far as I know my employer does not know this yet. Today my employer said I have a supervision. This supervision took over two hours and during it all my employer did was point out anything wrong or negative and sometimes petty that I was supposed to have done. I argued and denied a lot of points but was ignored. For the first time my employer wrote down the supervision and asked me to sign it. I read what he had written and said I did not want to sign it because the way in which he wrote it made me sound reall bad and incompetent. My employer made some comment about taking the situation further, he mentioned court too. I honestly don't know what for but he frightened me so much I signed. what I want to know is can I claim signing this supervision under duress if for any reason he wants to use it in some way against me.
Thank you
Worried
Re: Whistleblowing on an Employer
I am not familiar with the CQC. Is this a U.S. question and, if so, in what state?
If this is not a U.S. question, you should check a legal resource for your nation -- this is a U.S. forum and laws are different in every nation (and in every U.S. state).
Re: Whistleblowing on an Employer
I’m going to guess that CQC refer’s to the United Kingdom’s Care Quality Commission, a UK government agency that monitors, inspects and regulates health and social care services. One of the areas it regulates is care homes, which I’m guessing is the category the residental home falls into. The CQC allows persons to make anonymous whistleblowing reports and also has a policy of not disclosing the identity of whistleblowers unless legally required to do so. So your employer ordinarily should not know if you made a report to the CQC. But if the employer does find out, it is not clear if UK law prohibits the employer from retaliating against you for it. I note that in the CQC whistleblowing publication there is no mention of any such prohibition and I would think if there was one the CQC would point it out to encourage whistleblowing reports. But I know little of UK law on this, and this site addresses U.S. law. So if you are in the U.K. then I suggest you find a web site that deals with U.K. legal issues for more information.
Re: Whistleblowing on an Employer
i'm sorry, yes it is in the UK. I did not realise that this forum only covered the USA. The answer I was seeking was about weather my signature was valid due to signing under duress, Once again I apologise. I cannot find a site like this in the UK
Re: Whistleblowing on an Employer
Re: Whistleblowing on an Employer
Quote:
Quoting
Dian Lawrence
The answer I was seeking was about weather my signature was valid due to signing under duress.
I think it is likely that on this point the law in the U.S. and U.K. is probably similar since the concept of duress comes from the common law, though I will not guarantee the U.K is the same. In the U.S. duress refers to the use of some kind physical force, theat of physical force, or other illegal acts or threats to compel someone to do something, such as signing a contract for example. The classic example of duress is putting a gun to the person’s head and telling him to sign the document or he’ll be shot. The use of legal pressure is not duress. Thus, generally speaking, the threat by an employer that an employee will be fired if he does not sign something would not be duress since for the most part a threat to fire an employee is perfectly legal. In that circumstance, while the employee might well fear loss of his job and feel compelled to sign to avoid getting fired, it is still not duress.
Re: Whistleblowing on an Employer
Thank you I have registered on this site