The U.S. Department of Labor has settled the second of two lawsuits that accused separate employers of retaliating against employees in relation to health and safety issues in the workplace and raised major concerns in the employer community. 

The Labor Department announced it settled its lawsuit against Southfield, Michigan-based Lear Corp. and three of its managers on Tuesday. The lawsuit, filed March 4 in the U.S. District Court in Mobile, Alabama, claimed that the company and its managers violated the anti-discrimination provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act by suspending and terminating employees who reported workplace safety hazards, according to court records. However, OSHA and the company filed a joint motion asking the court to dismiss the case. 

A March 2015 court filing by Lear sought a temporary order to restrain Kimberly King, one of several fired employees, on grounds of intentional interference with business relations and defamation after she spoke to media outlets about her workplace safety concerns and tried to deliver a letter to Lear customer Hyundai Motor Co., asking the Seoul, South Korea-based automaker to require Lear to deal with these issues.

Federal authorities responded by securing a restraining order forbidding the automotive seating and electrical provider from engaging in or threatening retaliation against employees during a whistleblower investigation, according to court records.

“One of the department’s highest priorities is to protect the voices of workers who speak up about hazards at their workplaces,” Stanley Keen, regional solicitor in the department’s Atlanta office, which litigated the case, said Tuesday in a statement. “We will move swiftly to address instances of retaliation, as we did here. In this case, we obtained the first preliminary injunction ever sought under OSHA’s whistleblower provisions. The resolution of this case reflects significant improvements for employees at this employer’s facility.”

The company agreed to dismiss a lawsuit against Ms. King for publicly complaining about health conditions at the company’s Selma, Alabama, plant, to reinstate Ms. King and to “make whole” two other employees for the work time lost due to being suspended by the company, according to the settlement agreement. All three employees will have disciplinary actions purged from their records and will be entitled to “no less than a neutral reference” from the company if contacted by potential employers. Lear also agreed not to retaliate against the three employees or any others who participate in protected activity under the OSH Act. 

The company also said it has made “substantial upgrades” to the health and safety conditions at its Selma plant, where employees are exposed to chemicals used in the foam-making process, according to the agreement.  

The Lear case, alongside a lawsuit filed against Pittsburgh-based United States Steel Corp., raised significant concerns in the employer community that OSHA was overstepping its bounds in its zeal to protect workers. In the U.S. Steel case, the Labor Department brought a suit in Wilmington, Delaware, federal court in mid-February seeking to reverse disciplinary actions against two employees for failing to immediately report workplace injuries in accordance with company policy, according to court records. The lawsuit was settled in July when the company agreed to rescind its policy of requiring employees to immediately report injuries and illnesses and then punishing employees for failing to abide by the policy.