Hey Reddit.
I work for a pharmaceutical company in the US and our plant director has been creating a hostile work environment, taking advantage of employees financially, and all of this results in potentially dangerous drug products getting on the market.
The plant director often yells at his managers and supervisors for minor things rather than helping them find a solution. This trickles down to the low end employees making them scared to discuss anything which is going wrong. If you disagree with him or make any kind of complaint you will either be slandered as lazy, homophobic (he’s gay so any complaints make you homophobic), or dumb. If you ask a question the response is always “that’s your job why am I going to tell you”. He also get very upset if things are documented via email and requires everything to be done in person so there is no evidence of hostility.
Supervisors and Quality lab technician are expected to work 50-60 hours per week and are paid just enough to legally make them overtime exempt. Barely enough to live on in the area while the company is making record profits. Production employees got a 3% raise in one of the most expensive areas of the country despite 7.5% inflation. Most work 2+ jobs just to pay rent.
Lastly due to all the hostility and yelling, potentially dangerous drug products go unnoticed. There is pressure to not rock the boat so inspections are done in a half assed manner, deviations from procedures are not documented, and the end products may have particles, fibers, or other foreign matter in them. These are product which are injected into the human body as drugs so this is extremely dangerous.
How do I help get rid of someone like this without jeopardizing my job? I cannot afford to lose this job but feel extremely bad for everyone getting subjected to this.
I cannot report this to anyone inside the company or any agency with my name attached or I will be fired. I know there are whistleblower protections but I cannot afford that at the moment.
How do I approach this? Any way to take action on a hostile workplace without solid evidence?