The company Massey Energy did not have an effective approach for their safety regulations. Massey Energy’s tragic explosion in 2010 was a sum of all the problems that they had ignored over the years. As a company, there are certain rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be the most effective and safe. I believe that Massey’s approach to their social and ethical responsibility was extremely indolent. Anytime that there is a large possibility of multiple deaths in a workplace due to a hostile work environment, there must be specific safety guidelines put in place. For something that tragic to happen at Massey’s Energy, the managers and faculty in charge either lacked knowledge of how to handle the minor accidents or completely ignored
Centralia Coal Company was owned by Bell & Zoller Coal & Mining Company. Herbert E. Bell was the Chairman and William P. Young was the Vice President. Illinois ranked third in coal production. Four agencies had authority over coal mining at the time; the state of Illinois, the United States Government, Centralia Coal Company and the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The explosion in Centralia No. 5 occurred on March 25, 1947. Beginning with his appointment in 1941, State Mine Inspector Driscoll O. Scanlan sent inspection reports to the Department of Mines and Minerals (DMM) Director Robert M. Medill. The U.S. Bureau of Mines inspected Centralia No. 5 the first time in September 1942. Findings and recommendations were the same in all reports. Scanlan requested maintenance related to safety issues. The U.S. Bureau of Mines report supported his findings. In all this time nothing was done.
The case study The Blast in Centralia no. 5: A mine Disaster No One Stopped is a useful lens through which to identify potential pitfalls for national security organizations. The most powerful lessons that ought to be learned by the case study are twofold. First, political interference in the work of governmental organizations can lead to dysfunction and mission failure. Second, the failure to conduct independent oversight over a governmental organization—especially when its performance has been openly questioned—permits that dysfunction to continue unabated.
...ate the effects that an accident can have on both their company and the rest of their industry.
Experts say the many deaths could have been prevented with better safety training and better safety precautions. Since then new and old rules have been enforced. During the late 1980's the federal and provincial governments installed boards to regulate offshore oil and gas. These boards required anyone visiting the rigs to have minimum safety...
Even though there were many factors contributing to the Challenger disaster, the most important issue was the lack of an effective risk management plan. The factors leading to the Challenger disaster are:
This is not the first time that BP is at fault. They have had criminal convictions in places such as Endicott Bay in Alaska, Texas City and Prudhoe Bay. Jeanne Pascal was a part of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and was assigned to watch over BP. Pascal was watching over companies such as BP that were facing debarment. Under her watch, BP was charged with four federal crimes. Over the past twelve years, Pascal’s seen BP patterns as misconducts. She attempted to warn the government about BP’s safety and environmental issues that would most likely lead to another disaster. While she was watching over BP, the company misinformed and misled her about things that resulted to the felonies that they have committed. Sensing that some things were not right about the company, she presented a case of their unsafe working environments.
“On March 23, 2005, at 1:20 pm, the BP Texas City Refinery suffered one of the worst industrial disasters in recent U.S. history. Explosions and fires killed 15 people and injured another 180, alarmed the community, and resulted in financial losses exceeding $1.5 billion.” (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007) There are many small and big decisions and oversights that led to the incident. Underneath all the specific actions or inaction is a blatant disregard for addressing safety violations and procedures that had been pointed out to BP even years before this event. The use of outdated equipment and budget cuts also contributed to the circumstances that allowed this accident to happen.
On April 17, 2013, the community of West, Texas, suffered a devastating and heartbreaking event in the evening hours. After a fire broke out inside the West Fertilizer plant, a massive explosion leveled the facility, caused millions of dollars in damage to surrounding buildings, and took the lives of over a dozen people. Sadly, the majority of those killed were volunteer firefighters who had responded to the fire and were unable to retreat to a safe distance before the explosion. Nearly 200 injuries were also reported to have been treated at local hospitals (Wood, 2013). The explosion was said to be caused by the combination of the fire and large stores of ammonium nitrate fertilizer at the plant.
...being held accountable, the city officials themselves were also held accountable because of improper safety regulations. Showing that the city itself should be at fault for not enforcing safety regulations for such things as fire escapes, that were not in working order. These unprecedented circumstances just lay down the blueprint for what is now the correct way to set regulations for industrial factory conditions.
Massey Energy Corporation failed to comply with governmental regulations for the application of rock dust. Thus, resulting in an explosive coal dust build up on the surface and in the air. Over fifty percent of the mine area where the explosion happened was poorly rock dust at the time of the explosion. Additionally, it was found that the area of the longwall where the explosion began had not been rock dusted since September 2009. Upper Big Branch Mine failed to have enough ventilation to provide miners with fresh, breathable air, and to remove methane and coal dust. Particularly, the push-pull ventilation system failed; consequently, the methane from the poor ventilation delivered fuel for the initial fireball. Also the water sprayers on the longwall shearer were not working properly and failed to extinguish the initial spark. After this event, Massey Energy Corporation version of what caused the explosion was completely different. The company blamed the events leading to this explosion on an unfortunate labor accident.
It was clear that the governments in America would not issue a permit to Union Carbide plant under such circumstances, which lacked severe environmental standards and permitted slum dwellers to live near the plant and so on. Such actions were the ones that led to more deaths. Before the major gas leakage from the MCI unit on December 3, 1984, some people were killed because of phosgene gas leakage. However, no one took it seriously, despite the media report. One of the reasons that people ignore this was because people didnt know the potential danger of the chemical plant.
The safety measures now is strict and are regulated through the legislation act of health and safety benefits under the specific laws governed by the state and the employers are bound to follow them in order to ensure the safety and risk management to the employees in the coal mining sector.US has the proper safety and health regulation and the companies are legislated to follow the laws along with reporting and monitoring of the risk management team data’s to be worked out by higher officials giving prime importance to it. The ethics behind the imputation of proper risk management and safety guarantee makes the organizations free from unnecessary hazards and cost. This method also makes the turnover rate low for the employees as they are satisfied to work in the safe and risk free
My belief is that all agencies are responsible for this accident (Local, State, and Federal). The Mining Company, the Government and overall leadership is responsible for not protecting the mine workers’ safety. The Miners had concerns and voice out, begging for safe working conditions.
Since the probe, General Motors had created a new post that is charged with responsibility for vehicle safety (Muller, 2013). General Motors terminated sixteen people for their role in not repairing the faulty ignition switch. The mindset throughout General Motors was to retain the bad news and keep it apart from senior supervisors. This was undeviatingly contributed to no effort being taken to remedy the faulty switch. Because of this, General Motors is directly accountable for the graves of 13
Chemical and fire hazards in the workplace cause serious injuries that in most cases are fatal.