PG & E, Ethics: Ethics And Ethics

This film places PG&E at the center point of ethical controversy. Ethics is an inquiry into the moral judgements people make as to what is right or wrong (Sigismond, 2014, p. 19). In this case, we learn PG&E is clearly at fault, which allows us to learn from a number of ethical issues with their business practice. Two examples stand out. First, once PG&E learn that Masry’s law firm is investigating their use of hexavalent chromium, a representative from PG&G is sent to the law firm to attempt to stop the investigation. This representative offers to buy out the Jensen family who has been affected by poor health, and their young daughter, Annabelle, is battling cancer that is speculated to be linked to PG&E. He offers $250,000 for the Jensen’s

These ethical issues were focused on PG&E and their employees. It seems this group of individuals did anything to get by, including an employee who cleaned the tanks at PG&E while continuing to have severe nose bleeds. Additionally, PG&E did not care for others; otherwise they would have changed their policies to stop the use of harmful chemicals. The only employee seemingly willing to come forward was a man named Charles Embry, who approached Erin toward the end of her investigation. He was instrumental in this law suit because he had saved documents that PG&E had requested he destroy, because he knew it was unethical to destroy the evidence of harmful chemicals, calling himself a “bad employee” in his own words for his actions. He watched his cousin pass away at only 41 years old, after suffering nose bleeds while cleaning the cooling towers, having his colon and intestines removed, and ultimately dying from kidney tumors. Charles Embry clearly cared about others, the greatest good for the greatest number, and was willing to go against his manager’s direction, to do as he was told (Banaji, 2003, pp. 6-7), and therefore far more ethical than his managers at

In this case, PG&E deceived the entire town of Hinckley by allowing them to believe that their water source was safe. Deception was clearly portrayed throughout the film, with a particularly good example toward the beginning of the movie. The film described how PG&E held a meeting with 200 people from Hinckley to explain the benefits of PG&E using chromium 3 at their plant. Chromium 3 is similar to hexavalent chromium, but its effects on the human body are quite benign in comparison, however the deception is clear when the film goes on to show that PG&E was not actually using chromium 3 at their plant, and was actually using the harmful hexavalent chromium instead. As explained previously, hexavalent chromium is extremely dangerous and harmful to humans. This deceit continued for far too long, allowing the community to believe that children could safely play in pools and all members could safely drink water out of their faucet. It was even proven toward the end of the film that PG&E were aware of their actions because there were internal PG&E documents dated 1966 that described how it would be “better for all if documents were not discussed…” (Soderbergh, 2000). This company ended up losing the largest direct-action lawsuit in United States history, therefore in some sense it was resolved with the $333 million paid to the people of