My question involves labor and employment law for the state of:Tennessee
Good Day. I am an employee of a company that is based in TN (at-will state). I am currently in Korea demining the DMZ. I was issued a CAC (Common Access Card) and I am not sure if that precludes me from writing the Office of Special Counsel using the whistleblower's hotline. I am subcontracted to the company running the job by a company in the same line of work. I have a contract of employment which is filed with misinformation. The contract stated that I would be working out of Youngsan, but instead I am working out of Dongducheon. The contract also states that my lodging would be provided by my company while representatives of my company tell me that my contract states that my lodgings will be provided by the company to which I am sub-contracted. These indescretions seem to validate a contractual error on my companies part, but that is just the beginning. First there is the issue of per diem. Some companies allow the employee to recieve the full Joint Travel Regulated per diem and live of the economy. Other companies provide housing and only provide the ME and I portion of per diem. Since we traveled to a foreign country the company provided the lodging. The differences in the lodgings for sub-contracted employees vs. the parent comapany's employees is more than noticeable. My building is very inexpensive and very unsatisfactory. It is also unsafe, and unsanitary. Since my contract states that my lodgings are provided by my company, I lodged my complaints with them. I asked for ull per diem and to live on the economy. That was answered with the statement that the parent company makes too much profit from per diem to allow my request. The contract did not state that I would have a roomate, but I did have a roomate. So the parent company makes more profit by stacking us in this way. I wrote to the Department of Justice about the per diem question and was answered that paying the full ATR/FTR rate was at the company's discretion as there are no labor laws regarding per diem. I accepted it and moved on to being moved into a better place. My apartment has homemade wiring that has caught fire, holes in exterior walls, unsafe stairs, no lav in the bathoom, so hand and face washing are in the kitchen sink, and inadequate room for two persons. I made several calls to my project manager about the situation over the past couple months to no avail. More on this later, it led to the demobilization. Another instance of what I would like to know the legality of is what is referred to as "double dipping". The US government pays the company per diem to house each employee. One man asked for a private apartment so his wife could join him. The parent company allowed it on the basis that he pays the company half the rent and utilities. Another employee had his wife here for the month long visitor visa to his private apartment and payed nothing. I wonder if it is legal for a company to charge an employee half the rent, which is more than paid for by the lodging portion of the US government allowance, for private housing, while charging others nothing. It soes not seem so.
This job is complicated. To begin I was demobilized from a job with one day to pack and mobilize to Korea. I did so. The work visas here require a SOFA stamp received through the Lorean Embassy. There are many people on this job at this time who are working on visitor's visas illegally as a work visa via the SOFA stamp is mandatory. The company is shipping people in with visitor visas and putting them to work illegally. What is the employee to do? If I blow the whistle on this the employee could be fined by the Korean government. Not the employer. They must be breaking US laws to mobilize people in this way. I have voiced this to my fellow employees and we all talk openly about it, but only one other employee has been demobilized for his actions. He was concerned with the safety of the job site. He was fired for voicing his opinion on safety issues. Realizing the at-will nature of the job, I wonder about being terminated after speaking about such weighty issues.
May of the employees are from Mozambique, South Africa, and others from the UK, then there are the US citizens. The Africans have been working on visitor's visas for the duration, since March. The British were all demobilized after complaining about the short work hours and their visitor visas expiring being renewed and epiring again. The Africans are ilegal, and the British are illegal. The company is fully aware and so is the Corps of Engineers representative. There is an environment of acceptance of the ililcit nature of the employment here. As stated before, after visiting the OSC website, I do not think I qualify for the whistleblowers hotline, but I will ask them after this. I have already written to the DoJ, so there may be retaliation involved if the company heads heard of this action.
I was informed today that after three months plus here that I am being demobilized. No job offer, just fired. No reason for the action and everyone is surprised. My immediate supervisor is dismayed due to my strong work ethic. I will contact the company tonight to ascertain the reasoning behing the dismissal. To complicate matters they are forcing a demob on Friday, three days from now and I am newly married here with a pregnant wife and we have an appointment on Friday at the US Embassy on Friday to get her visa in order.
My last letter of complaint to my company about the housing asked why my requests to move apartments had been neglected for so long. I referred to the other employee that was fired for his safety concerns, as it has been discussed with my project manager. I said that if the parent company fired me, I should have legal recourse. They may have forwarded the letter the the parent company and the parent company decided to test my mettle. I was told by the senoir supervisor who works for the parent company that I was to demob on Friday and it came from my company and he did not know why. What should I do to keep my job as I am still here and working legally and have all these whistles to blow on the parent companies actions. Also, I would like to reiterate the double dipping issue with the per diem along with the roomate which is omitted from the contract, and the fact that some employees are housed in very good housing, while the sub-contractors are housed in slums which are half the price. The Africans are stacked two per bedroom. That is all I have for now and would like to thank anyone who can shed some legal light on this situation.

