Agency officials may not take, fail to take, or threaten to take a personnel action because of an employee's protected disclosure. To be protected, the employee must have disclosed what the employee reasonably believes is:
A violation of a law, rule, or regulation.
Gross mismanagement.
A gross waste of funds.
An abuse of authority.
A substantial and specific threat to public health or safety.
An agency also may not take, fail to take, or threaten to take a personnel action against an employee who:
Cooperated with or disclosed information to the Special Counsel, an agency's Inspector General, or another agency component responsible for internal investigation or review.
Refused to obey an order that would require the employee to violate a law, rule, or regulation.
Federal employees may disclose government waste or wrongdoing to the OSC and the OSC will protect the employee from retaliation. Complaints of whistleblower retaliation also come before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) through:
An appeal of a personnel action that is directly appealable to the MSPB (an otherwise appealable action (OAA)).
An individual right of action (IRA) appeal of a personnel action that is not directly appealable to the MSPB.
OSC bringing a complaint on the employee's behalf.