Workforce Bulletin

By Allen B. Roberts and John Houston Pope

With virtually no fanfare, a major sector of the American workforce – those who handle food – won whistleblower protections under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (“FSMA”), Pub. L. No. 111-353. The Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) describes FSMA, signed into law on January 4, 2011, as improving food safety by preventing hazards “from farm to table” and making “everyone in the global food chain responsible for safety.”

While much attention and controversy surrounded the whistleblower bounty awards of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”) enacted in July 2010, the potentially more significant whistleblower provision of FSMA passed in the final days of the 2010 legislative session in routine and undramatic fashion. Indeed, the most significant whistleblower portions of the bill did not emerge until a version of the bill was reported out of a Senate committee in mid-November. (No written report explained the major changes written into the law.) Because of the sheer size of the workforce that touches food and the comprehensive definition of “protected activity,” however, the relatively unheralded law extends coverage and companion employer obligations in potentially unprecedented measure. The claims that result could dwarf those arising under whistleblower laws receiving far more media and business attention.