🏆 Worst Employer of 2025:
The New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network
Why? Because the allegations described in the November 19, 2025, report released by the House Ways and Means Committee are the stuff of nightmares.
According to that report (and the whistleblower accounts described in it), investigators allege:
Attempts to recover organs from people who did not consent to be donors.
Families being misled about the authority the organization did (and didn't) have.
Organs reportedly procured and then discarded, not for medical reasons, but to chase federal performance metrics.
And the one I still can't shake and sealed this victory: a patient declared dead, the recovery process began… and then the patient reanimated. Whistleblowers told investigators the CEO instructed the team to "proceed with recovery" anyway. Thankfully, hospital staff intervened to halt this atrocity.
Layer on top of that allegations of deleted/manipulated documents and misleading statements to Congress, and you get something far bigger than "bad management." This is a textbook example what happens when leadership loses the plot so completely that human beings become KPIs and ethics/morals are ignored (if they ever existed at all).
To be crystal clear, these are allegations described by congressional investigators. But if even a meaningful portion of them are true, this isn't just "worst employer" material—this is a collapse of basic humanity.
Thanks to everyone who shared your thoughts throughout the year on the various nominees, sent me nominees of your own, and voted. The bar for "Worst Employer" gets higher every year. Somehow, this cleared it.
See you next year with a new batch of nominees.