Whistleblowing is career suicide, usually committed in a small rural labor market. It frequently results in someone with a narrow range of potential employers (how many hydrologists have you hired lately?) being vigorously blacklisted. The employeeÕs colleagues often hear that the employee is mentally unstable, is a spy for the environmentalists, stole something or similar nasty rumors. The public may applaud their courage for a day or two, but the government will definitely harass them for years.

I have watched a few whistleblowers in action. Whistleblowers tend to be very competent resource professionals, almost obsessively so in some cases. You know, the fish biologist who comes in weekend after weekend on her own time to finish a report, that sort of thing. Whistleblowers also tend to be field-level, or at least to be directly involved in analysis of field data or management of ground-level programs.

Anyone who has tallied how often the U.S. Forest Service wins in court or observed our standing with the general public knows that we have a competence problem with our decision makers. This is because Forest Service managers are not always promoted for competence. On the contrary, on some units they are increasingly selected on the basis of their loyalty to their boss and to the organization.

Managers who want fast-track promotions quickly learn to use a technique that frees them from complex and difficult resource decisions. They do data-free analysis and analysis-free decision making. That is, if they can make decisions that are entirely unrelated to conditions on the ground, they can always make the decision that is most likely to get them promoted. Naturally, some poor idealistic schmuck who thinks we are actually supposed to analyze the data and do what is right for the land and what serves the public is going to be pretty frustrated working for one of these fast-trackers. Once in a while, that idealistic specialist is going to call a reporter. The point is, a few employees will always whistleblow on careerist managers out of frustration over poor decisions and uninformed management.

With all the controversy here in Region 6, some managers have become increasingly suspicious and paranoid. They have turned to promoting only those who share their ideology. When managers select for factors other than job performance, you get a drop in productivity. That is basic labor economics and should annoy the hell out of any taxpayers who are reading this. If you select on ideology, eventually you reach a critical mass of people with similar ideology. They think the same and they tell each other they are right. If you have senior managers who all think alike, they interact primarily with those of like mind. Soon the organization begins to lose touch with the rest of society.

Eventually this becomes a behavioral sink in which your organization, like a cult, feels attacked by outside ideas and therefore the group thinks they must hold the line against the rabble. Now you canÕt just hire and promote those who think like you, but only those who are strident in their defense of your sacred ideas. This narrows your labor market further and leads to an embattled bunker mentality. With this mindset it is very easy to identify loyal employees as whistleblowers. That has happened once in my experience. In that case the guy later did drop a dime on the government, explaining, ’Hey, they think I am doing it anyway.“

If you maneuver the conditions of employment so that there is no way to deal with a problem, you get a certain amount of whistleblowing. For example, the Forest Service has defined a remarkable percentage of its employees as ’management“ and denied them access to union representation. Without union representation, your main option if you have a problem with management is an administrative grievance. In union circles, the agencyÕs administrative grievance process is considered a very mean joke. I did some digging a few years back and near as I could tell, no employee in Region 6 has ever won an administrative grievance. The fascinating thing about this is that when I reported these results in a union-management meeting, the head of personnel could barely conceal his pride at so completely perverting the grievance process. So, you have a system where, for many professional employees, there is essentially no administrative recourse, no access to the courts, no representation from a union. Most employees just knuckle under, but a few feel so strongly about the pressure to alter a report or to rip off the taxpayers yet again, that they call a reporter.

Other agencies have their share of whistleblowersÑthe FBI comes to mind. But the Forest Service has so many. Why? Because they do not have anything resembling a marketplace of ideas in the Forest Service. Because the current agency leaders value loyalty over all else. Because there is no legitimate way to dissent.

So, whistleblowing is career suicide for competent employees. It upsets the other employees and it diminishes the overall credibility of the agency. But it is absolutely necessary. It maintains some connection between the data and the decision. It keeps some little spark of public service alive in an agency dominated by cronyism and self-interest. It turns the rock over and for a moment, allows the public to see what is underneath.

If you truly want honest government, there has to be a way to let government workers be honest.