Stuart Schmidtke
Analysis II
March 5th, 2014
Bhopal Chemical Leak Disaster
When things go wrong many people either blame someone else or look to someone to get them out of their mess. When Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) caused one of the world’s worst industrial disasters in history, they turned to Dow Jones Chemical to change their image. Years after the Bhopal disaster, Dow purchased the company for $12 billion in hopes of increasing their shares and revenue. What Dow didn’t know is that they would be compensating the victims of the Bhopal disaster the same amount of money they bought Union Carbide Corporation for. The Bhopal disaster is an example of image crisis. Even though, Union Carbide Corporation was a financial gain, Dow ruined their image by taking such a long time to clean up a mess that left thousands dead.
On December 2nd 1984, a toxic leakage from the Bhopal plant exposed half a million people to forty tons of Methylisocyante (Greenpeace.org). The leakage was caused by large amounts of water entering the Methylisocyante tank, which is believed to be deliberlity injected to lower costs (Bhopal.com). Over the next few days, more than eight thousand people would die from gas exposure and for the next two decades hundreds of thousands would be exposed to the contaminated soil and ground water. Union Carbide Corporation left a huge mess in India, and Dow believed they could be the ones to clean up the mess and compensate the victims of the disaster.
Dow Jones Chemical taking responsibility for the Bhopal disaster is the perfect example of Image Crisis. Image Crisis is the way a company perceives itself and how the public views the company. The image of Union Carbide Corporation was ruined not only from the Bhopal d...
... middle of paper ...
...ferent view points.
Authority: It is credible because it comes from a trusted database.
Accuracy: It is accurate because it comes from victims and very credible sources.
Purpose: The purpose of this source is to have something other than a trusted website as a source.
"Bhopal Disaster. (2007) BBC, The Yes Men." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI
Currency: This video was taken when Dow announced they were compensating the Bhopal victims.
Relevance: This video is relevant because a big part of my paper was based on Dow paying back the Bhopal victims.
Authority: It is credible because it comes from the Dow spokesman himself.
Accuracy: It is accurate because it was taken right after Dow announced their plan to pay back the Bhopal victims.
Purpose: The purpose of this video is to back up my idea on Dow taking awhile to pay back the Bhopal victims.
I think that this source is reliable because it is from a website that has been created by the government intended to inform the general public about the use of drugs, and therefore it is unlikely to give out false information.
The documentary strived to show us how factories were corrupt that they couldn’t provide good working conditions for the workers until we lost people. This documentary is about the tragic fire that took place on March 25, 1911 in the Triangle factory. We can clearly see through this documentary that these people didn’t matter to the factory owners because their needs were not met. The documentary shows that the year before the fire took place the workers led a strike asking for better working conditions, but obviously their voices were not heard. After the fire took place this is when factories started improving working conditions. It is sad to learn that it took 146 lives of innocent people in order for factory owners to be convinced that they need to improve the poor working
Negligience is the major key to be considered. Most businesses only care about profit and neglect the hazard they pose on the environment. The two companies were making so much money that it wouldn’t cost a lot to clean up considering the profit they make. They eventually paid $69million but what about the destiny that has been destroyed because of their negligence. They knew dumping of these chemicals was polluting the local water and causing life threatening health issues but they never cared.
The ability of a company to maintain a good reputation is directly linked to the company’s ability to retain its stakeholders (Peterson, 2005). During a negative event or crisis situation, a company needs to ensure that it has effective strategies and resources in place, to deal with it responsibly, efficiently to minimize losses in share price value and public perceptions of corporate reputation (Coldwell .D, Joosub .T, & Papageorgiou .E, 2012). It is always advantageous to analyze past crises in order to develop a conceptual understanding of crisis situations and appropriateness of various means of coping with them (STERN, E. K., pg.1, 2009).
After the Bhopal Disaster, Union Carbide made an ethical decision through their legal strategy to secure the best outcome for themselves and to keep their company from going bankrupt multiple times over. Union Carbide used the corruption of the Indian court system to their advantage to minimize the amount they would pay in damages to the victims. Their strategy wouldn’t be considered moral to the victims of this chemical explosion if the trial were kept in the American court system. What is ethical isn’t always considered moral to all the parties involved. With a company facing bankruptcy and losing everything they had, the only ethical decision was to use the court systems to their advantage. By doing so, they made the ethical decision strictly
Hamilton, Stewart and Alicia Micklethwait. "Greed and Corporate Failure: The Lessons from Recent Disasters." New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006. 81-97.
Stakeholders in Johnson and Johnson were greatly affected in a positive way. Trust was broken and many expected a company failure, but the company was able to turn opinions as well as the crisis around. From adversity, Johnson and Johnson was able to keep the trust of their stakeholders by taking every possible measure to protect and ensure the people involved that the company is reliable, always has the stakeholders’ interest first, and something like this will never happen
In this case, the event was the murder of 13 and wounding of 23 persons at the Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The event took place on April 22, 1999 and, because of the subsequent suicide of the two teenage perpetrators, observers could only speculate on their motivation. While students were still hiding from the gunmen and while the police were still plotting their strategy, the media coverage began. Perhaps two impulses led to the coverage. First of all, the victims were not the children of the Hutus or East Timorese or even the Kosovos. These were "our" children and the parents our "friends." Their grief could have been ours. In fact, in a month plus a few days, five million dollars were donated to the survivors and the victim families even without there being a major fund-raising drive (Morning Edition, NPR, June 8, 1999).
At the four year mark of the Deep Water Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows British Petroleum (BP) to drill for oil in the gulf once again. Many consumer advocate groups, chiefly Public Citizens, have voiced concerns over this decision. The lack of corporate accountability and oversight makes this decision seem unethical to these advocates groups. However, the company agrees to follow the agency’s ethic and safety procedure given the new leases. Yet, a series of accidents on its infrastructure makes reform seem doubtful for the company.
Generally speaking, the legal system didn¡¦t play a very active role in this case. First of all, the India government could do more on digging the truth of the gas leak out and set a more strict standard to regulate such dangerous plants in case that another crisis. Second, I didn¡¦t see any one who worked in the Union Carbide¡¦s Bhopal plant should be responsible for that tragedy. Does it mean that all that the India court wanted was money or it just wanted to reduce trial and subsequent appeals because it might have taken more than twenty years?
Furthermore, there were several ethical issues raised by the Bhopal Union Carbide Corporation. First and foremost important ethical issue to be address is the moral value of protecting the human life. I think the management team from both the United State and India did not protect the well-being of their employees and the community of the Bhopal people who lived near by the plant. The Union Carbide Corporation was more concern about making profits and the Government of India was more in tune with increasing their grain production rather than emplacing a high priority for ...
A further look at facts of the incident, analysis of the risk management issues and evaluation and recommendation of BP’s response to the crisis will be presented in this report.
This source is valid because the source is very professional and has evidence to back up any claims.
"Victims' Stories." U.S. Department of State. U.S. Department of State, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. .
Union Carbide. (2013). Frequently asked questions regarding the Bhopal tragedy of 1984. Retrieved from http://bhopal.com/