Legal Regulation Of Employee's Reporting Behavior

In recent years,enterprises' illegal acts in food safety,product quality,environmental pollution and other areas concerned public interest have been reported frequently in the newspaper,which benefits from the organization's insider reports.The reporting behavior of employees can effectively make up for the deficiencies in the enforcement information of the competent authorities,and maintain the social and public interests.However,reporting employees are often subjected to various forms of retaliation against the employer,for their reports causes economic or reputation losses to employers' businesses.Therefore,how to build and improve the legal system,for the legit reporting of employees to provide adequate and necessary protection and relief,has become an important and urgent issues.Employee reporting in this article,especially refer to the employee who has established a labor relationship with the employer,report the employer's illegal behavior he knows to the competent authorities.In a democratic society ruled by law,reporting right is fundamentally different from the disclosure duty forced by feudal ruling class.The identity of the employee determines that the reporting behavior has three characteristics different from the general citizen's report:the dominant position access to employer's illegal acts before reporting,the hard loyal ethical choice between the public and his employer,and the potential risk of retaliation coming from his employer after he reported.Employee reporting is both the right to report in general law and the freedom of expression at the constitutional level.However,the basic requirements of the personality and continuing nature of labor relations and the principles of good faith determine the behavior of employees shall be faithful to their employers and not harm interests of their employer.Thus,the exercise of the rights of employees to report will face the loyalty conflict,and the implied conflict between public interest and the private interests of employers.To balance the intricate conflicts of interest,in addition to remodel the rational loyal work ethic concept,the more feasible path is set the necessary norms and restrictions for the exercise of the right to report.The legal systems of the whistleblowers' protection of the United States,the United Kingdom,Japan,and South Korea all set the conditions for the reporting of employees,to ensure that employees regulate and legitimize their reporting behaviors,mitigate conflicts with their loyal obligations,and reduce unnecessary damage for employers' interests.However,China's current reporting laws have no such requirments.According to the foreign law,this paper argues that the proper elements of the report that are suitable for our legal and society characteristics should include:the subjective need for goodwill and reasonable belief that the employer has a wrongful act;the content should be limited to illegal or criminal acts,especially serious violations of the public interest;procedures should follow the general order inside the first,and meet the strict premise when report to the media or other external organizations.The law should provide adequate protection to employees who meet the above requirements to protect them from the employer's adverse treatment.There is no specialized legislation on protection of the reporter in our country.The scattered reporting clauses in relevant laws and dismissal restrictions and the presumption of dismissal in the labor legislation,although provides for the employee with one or more protection measures as follows:information confidentiality,personal protection,guilty relief and unfair disposal,which are established by specialized foreign legislation,they still have the following shortcomings:lack of concern about the conflict between reporting right and employees' loyalty,failed to clear a prerequisite for protection;and Labor law can not be effectivly connected to reporting provisions in other relevant laws,the range of protected objects is narrow;and the enumerative provisions on dismissal restrictions and presumptive dismissal in the labor law,can not be exhausted adverse treatment employees suffered;and arbitration or judicial proceedings just treat the retaliatory adverse treatment as a general labor dispute,did not comprehensively examine the fact that the employer's retaliation,which easily lead to substantial injustice;and the standard to determine the amount of compensation is unreasonable.Considering the time of making a separate Whistleblower Protection law in our country,this paper chooses to improve the above-mentioned deficiencies on the basis of the current labor law:adding and revising the current reporting clauses in the labor law to clear the protection premise for employee;and expand the extension of the reporting matters to all illegal acts based on other reporting law,to achieve the effective convergence of the law;and stipulate the form of adverse treatment in enumerative and general method;and in arbitration or proceedings,judge the employer's retaliation in a labor dispute;and grant discretion to the arbitrator or the judge to allow them to establish a reasonable indemnity under the statutory maximum amount,in conjunction with the actual damage to the employee.