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ethical dillema with bhopal disaster
environtment ethic bhopal tragedy
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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 …show more content…
As the CEO of Union Carbide, I would have made the ethical decision in doing what’s best for the company by using the best possible legal strategy. According to The Times of India, “an Indian court declared Warren Anderson, the CEO of the Union Carbide at the time of the disaster, an absconder and a fugitive from justice (Rajgahatta)” after he fled on bail to the U.S. to avoid prosecution. Anderson is now 89 and he lives in a million-dollar house on Long Island and refuses to return to India to face criminal charges. Unlike the actual CEO, I wouldn’t leave my company behind in order to not face my charges. Thus, the obituary would show that I have a strong character, as I would never leave my company out to dry. I would do whatever it took to keep employees from losing their jobs. People would understand I had the best intention in doing what I did so that my employees wouldn’t suffer. I would want that to show in my obituary so people would always remember that my employees came first and I would do what’s best from my …show more content…
I believe it was in the best interest for the company to do whatever they could to save the company and their employees. It seems to be more of an issue that the Indian system was slow and susceptible to corruption and bribery, rather than the fact Union Carbide chose to go that route. The decision made was ethical for the company as it ultimately saved itself from going bankrupt. They tried to do their best the respect the rights of the induvial involved and creating the best outcome. Although outside factors played a role in the eventual dispersal of money, Union Carbide made an ethical decision and saved its company while still attempting to pay the
Arnold & Porter chose to sue Pittston rather than the Buffalo Mining Company because the value of the corporation allowed for adequate compensation to the victims. Author and head lawyer for the plaintiffs, Gerald M. Stern, writes that the original goal was sue to sue for $21 million for the disaster to have a material effect on the cooperation (51). To avoid responsibility Pittston attempted to prove that the Buffalo Mining Company was an independent corporation with its own board of directors. The lawyers for the plaintiffs disproved this claim by arguing the Buffalo Mining Company never held formal meetings of the board of directors and was not independent of the parent company. During this case Pittston’s Oil division had applied to build an oil refinery in Maine. The ...
1. How was Lincoln able to grow and prosper for so long in such a difficult commodity industry that forced out other giants such as General Electric, Westinghouse and BOC? What is the source of Lincoln’s outstanding and enduring success?
The ethical issue in this situation is the willingness of the company’s director to prevent the employees from organizing in union. Among others, the company’s director try to use unfair tactic like diversion, intimidation, manipulation, termination of job contract and threat to shut down the company leading to massive loss of job. In an ethical standpoint, these tactics are wrong.
As a result, GM’s developer Edward Cole was well aware of the major design defect of the excessive weight in the rear causing General Motors to face 106 Corvair liability lawsuits involving injuries and death. After the publication of Nader’s book General Motors hired a private detective in New York to gather information and discredit Nader. Nader sued General Motors for invasion of privacy winning millions in the lawsuit. Furthermore, CEO James Roche promoted Edward Cole the Corvair design engineer in question, to GM’s President. Did the CEO Roche of General Motors make a sound ethical decision with the promotion?
The United States located electronic company Electrocorp faced the problem of declining profitability due to rising production costs, specifically high wages, costly worker's safety and environmental standards. In order to solve this problem Electrocorp is deciding whether to relocate some of their plants to South Africa, Mexico, or the Philippines.
Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the
After news of the scandal of Enron, one of the hottest items on e-Bay was a 64-page copy of Enron’s corporate code of ethics. One seller/former employee proclaimed it had “never been opened.” In the forward Kenneth L. Lay, CEO of Enron stated, “We want to be proud of Enron and to know that it enjoys a reputation for fairness and honesty and that it is respected (Enron 2).” For a company with such an extensive code of ethics and a CEO who seemed to want the company to be respected for that, there are still so many unanswered questions of what exactly went wrong. I believe that simply having a solid and thorough code of ethics alone does not prevent a company from acting unethically when given the right opportunity.
To sum up, Union Carbide handled the crisis cleverly but not well enough because it knew what would the India government and court react to this incident. Union Carbide controlled the whole situation and took lead of the lawsuits itself. The India government and court didn¡¦t help those victims as much as they needed instead. The function of government, designed to protect its people, disappeared in this case.
This case involves Ford and the Japanese tire manufacturer, Bridgestone/Firestone. The Ford Explorers which were prone to rolling over, came equipped with Firestone defected tires. The tire seemed to have a defect that caused the tread to separate from the whole of the tire and cause the vehicle to flip. Although Firestone knew about such defects, they continued to produce despite knowing the deadly consequences that lay behind their actions. The Explorer also had a bad reputation of rolling over and Ford knew it. As a result, fatal accidents occurred from these two combinations. Since this was a very serious safety issue, Ford and Firestone were ordering the recall of problem tires in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Asia but not in the United States. So, did the company act ethically in resolving this crisis? No, the companies failed to fix the problem in the United States. According to NHTSA, the tires have caused many deaths and injuries in the United States. In fact, these accidents would have not occurred if both companies have solved the problem immediately. Thus, despite the obvious safety issues, there were also fundamental ethical issues.
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 ...
In that case, unions have already blamed the fiasco. That is because the fiasco make the decision to outsource much of the company’s IT jobs, as Indian staff are paid little compared with their British counterparts.
When an ethical dilemma arises within an organization, it is difficult to separate right and wrong with what is best for the majority. Sometimes the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.” In 2002, Enron Corporation shows us just that. By 2002, the sixth-largest corporation in America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case of the Enron scandal is one of the best examples of corporate greed and fraud in America.
In the aftermath of Enron, Washington Mutual Bank, TYCO, and World Comm these companies went against the grain of what good ethical behavior is and what their respective company’s code of ethics were. The criminal justice system has made it clear that it will not allow companies and their executives to get away with the misuse of public trust by allowing them to make themselves rich at the expense of the employee. Where these crimes are both ethically and morally wrong, the CEO’s of major corporations are being punished by a ...
The term “ethical business” is seen, by many people, as an oxymoron. This is because a business’s main objective is to make as much money as possible. Making the most money possible, however, can often lead to unethical actions. Companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Satyam have been the posterchildren for how corporations’ greed lead to unethical practices. In recent times however, companies have been accused of being unethical based on, not how they manage their finances, but on how they treat the society that they operate in. People have started to realize that the damage companies have been doing to the world around them is more impactful and far worse than any financial fraud that these companies might be engaging in. Events like the BP oil
Two main theories have been published on the cause of the industrial accident that occurred at the Union Carbide pesticide plant: employee sabotage and corporate negligence. Following the events that took place in Bhopal, there were two investigations conducted. The initial investigation was jointly conducted by the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation. The Union Carbide Corporation also led an investigation headed by chairman, Warren Anderson, and consisted of medical and technical experts, including Jackson Browning. Union Carbide claims that their investigation was hindered by the Indian Government and they were not allowed to interview emp...