– This was what was feared and the experience of previous whistleblower channels is that there are quite a few work environment issues that are not meant to be covered by whistleblowers, says Lise Donovan, attorney at TCO, to the working world.

The newspaper requested whistleblower reports from all regions in 2022 and 2023 and received a total of 177 responses. The law states that the alerts must apply to work-related misconduct in the public interest. However, this has been interpreted in different ways by different whistleblowers. Many of the alarms concern various types of conflicts between employees. One of the alarms comes from a woman who did not receive flowers from her boss during her sick leave, while a colleague did. Another raised the alarm about cheating when work would be drawn around Christmas and New Year, and a third signaled that a high-ranking doctor was having an affair with his boss.

However, according to Lise Donovan, alarms about various conflicts do not have to fall outside the scope of the law. If it’s a person who is essential to the company and “fights with all the employees,” that’s a problem, she says.

– If it concerns a senior manager who is extremely important to the entire company, then there may be a public interest. It shows that it is a dysfunctional board, she tells Arbetsvärlden.

In December 2021, the new whistleblower law came into force.

Read also: Now the regions are obliged to provide the opportunity to whistle