Much of what I post here will be purely stream of consciousness, and often in response to current events, so please don't expect a linear narrative. At some point I may edit this stuff and arrange it in topical or chronological order. We'll see.
This was my first experience with real corruption in the workplace, and in fighting people with the power to make or break others. I've never liked bullies, and the most dangerous ones are the ones wearing suits and ties who don't have to raise a fist to do their damage. The jerks on the playground in elementary school could ruin your day. These people can ruin lives. And since the stakes are so much higher, the strategy has to be more complex. So here's the story of how I played a role in bringing down a toxic work culture. I won't claim to be the hero of the piece here. I definitely wasn't. I had a lot of personal issues I was working through at the time completely unrelated to work that made me a target. But I was not the only target by far.
To frame my story, this all happened around 30 years ago near the beginning of my civil service career, and all of the offending parties have since been dealt with. At the time I was a GS-6 Freedom of Information Specialist, with the job of retrieving information responsive to outside requests. This information was then reviewed prior to release to make sure confidiential information (usually stuff relating to ongoing legal actions, names of witnesses or third parties, trade secret information, etc.) is redacted before being sent out. Trust me, it's not nearly as exciting as it sounds.
To make a long story short, I had found evidence of widescale financial fraud in my office. The previous #2 in our office had been forced to resign over some irregularities in a voucher for relocation expenses. He in turn tried to sue over the matter and named names as to who should be looked at. As part of discovery in that case, his representative had made a FOIA request.
Sometimes requests have to be denied, either because the information isn't releasable (it's either a legal matter still before the court, or confidential information, or rough drafts of final reports, or some such thing). Normally when a FOIA request was denied by a field office in those days, the denial had to be approved by headquarters. The person handling the request would write a memo explaining the legal justification for denying the request, and headquarters would either uphold the denial or tell us to release the information anyway. There was a certain reporter with the Los Angeles Times who would make enormous, sweeping requests for information that we'd have to chop down several times just to ensure we could fulfill them within a year of his asking! Needless to say, he didn't like that at all, but for the amount of work he was having us do, he's lucky we billed him at the news media rate rather than the general public rate!
However, if headquarters were to have reviewed this particular denial, the next thing that would have happened would be an visit from the Inspector General's office by a forensic accountant (and possibly some guys with guns and handcuffs). Instead there was a note pinned to the file that read 'DO NOT RELEASE PER [name of the office director]'. The file contained the original request, along with responsive documents that proved the allegations. Sensing that this information might prove critical later, I made my own copies.
During an unrelated event, I asked a representatitve from the IG's office about whether they could protect someone who made a report from retaliation. Unfortunately our IG could not guarantee whistleblower protection. I was approached later on by someone close to management who asked me what dirt I had that I would want to report. "Nothing I'm going to let you or anyone else here know about now!" I told her.
At the time I was experiencing some medical issues that had been exacerbated by the stress this and other things had placed on me, and I was being targeted by management over my work performance due to these issues. I was afraid that I would be incapacitated and unable to tell the story for myself if the situation escalated. So I made sure my parents had the key to my safe deposit box, where I had kept the copies of all the documents I had made along with the name and address of that Los Angeles Times reporter I mentioned earlier who really did not like our local management. I figured he would love the opportunity to take on this story. (Going directly to the reporter would have risked retaliation and being dismissed as a disgruntled malcontent; this was meant as a last resort). Probably not the greatest strategy, but the best a 20-something clerk who was scared out of his mind could come up with.
Thankfully that move wasn't necessary. At the same time, we had organized a union vote. The management at the time was rotten to the core in every imaginable way and morale was extremely low. Management's response to three suicides among the staff in two months was to completely deny that their behavior had played a role in matters (even though management was the only thing connecting these three people). And that was only the tip of the iceberg (or the crust on the privy).
I helped organize the union vote and became one of the first union stewards once we certified (currently I'm running for VP of my chapter so I've kept busy with them 
). The vote succeeded overwhelmingly, after which we were able to bring outside pressure on management. For those who think that civil service unions are unnecessary because we have great pay and benefits, and because we aren't allowed to strike there isn't a point: every workplace has people somewhere in management who are either too malicious, too incompetent, or both and who should never have been placed in charge of others. And every large organization has a 'good old boys' network which protects these types as long as they kiss the correct asses. Having an outside observer cut through the crap and hold them to account is extremely helpful! Management began to sweat almost as soon as the vote was announced. Some of the shenanigans management tried to pull during the vote caught the interest of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the union's attorneys as well. One supervisor claimed that he had 'counseled' me over the use of official time to perform union activities. The union's attorney had a great deal of fun with the revelation that the 'counseling session' consisted of this jerk yelling at me in the men's room for five minutes straight with no one else present...
There were some unrelated civil penalties as well for hostile working conditions. One supervisor managed to rack up $60,000 in penalties personally before she was asked to pursue other opportunities. Another one got himself into extremely hot water for marking a woman AWOL because she went into labor in the bathroom and didn't bother to ask for leave first. Sexual harassment, racial and ethnic discrimination, you name it, it was happening. But we put the screws to them and within two years all of them had been forced out or opted to resign so as to not face the heat.
Our new management was a vast improvement. The new director in particular cleaned house and either got rid of the offending supervisors or ensured their careers remained stalled. He also became probably my greatest professional mentor; without him my own career would have stalled regardless. Things were hardly a utopia after that but at least it was the usual BS office politics rather than the cesspool it had been before.
I don't claim at all to have been All That in this process. I was one of many, many people who worked to make the changes. But that in itself was an important lesson: someone fighting the system on their own is doomed to failure. An organized group of people with competent leadership and planning can shift the world!
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