1 This appeal has been assigned to a panel of two Board members, as authorized by Secretary's Order 1-2002, 67 Fed. Reg. 64272 (Oct. 17, 2002).
2 OSHA is the agency within the Department charged with investigating complaints that an employer has violated the STAA's whistleblower protection provisions. 29 C.F.R. § 1978.102(c) (2002).
3 An arbitration committee reduced two prior attempts at termination to suspension. An additional termination attempt was reversed when it was determined that Yellow Freight had failed to pay Bushway for all of his accrued vacation time. R. D. & O. at 2-4.
4 Whether the individual to whom Bushway wrote was the president of Yellow Freight at the time he wrote to him is not clear from the ALJ's R. D. & O. Yellow Freight indicated in its Motion for Decision that "Complainant apparently did not realize that Myers [the president] had retired." Motion to Dismiss at 15 n.18. The ALJ's R. D. & O. does not indicate that he considered the issue whether a letter to a former officer of an employer constitutes a valid complaint under the STAA. Because we need not resolve this question to decide this case, we take no position here on whether a letter to a retired president could be considered a complaint under the STAA.
5 This evidence includes: Affidavit of Ted Dunn at 3-4; Discharge letter from Ted Dunn to David Bushway dated September 8, 1999; Letter from David Bushway to Maury Myers dated October 22, 1999. Yellow Freight included these documents as attachments to its Motion for Summary Decision.