Bhopal Case Study
Academic Writing
Cesar Rubio
27/11/12
Research Paper
After the events that happened in the Bhopal tragedy the night of December 2nd 1984, it is more than clear that Union Carbide Corporation have the responsibility of this tragedy and took an unethical business position, First, By making the wrong decisions about the planning of the factory because they did not invest to have effective security methods as they had on the plants located in developed countries. Second, because at the time of the disaster they were not conscious about the consequences and the way to act in the case of a disaster. Third, because even more than 25 years after the tragedy the company have not take full responsibility about the disaster.
Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is an American multinational company which after and attempt of the Indian government to increase the investment of international companies in the country, built a pesticide plant in Bhopal in 1969. The company took advantage of building a plant in a third world country were the safety regulations for making a production plant are tremendously lower. Although, the plant was newer than the ones in U.S or Europe, the technology for the plant procedures was archaic, to lower the company investment. ‘By the early 1980s the Bhopal facility was operating at one-quarter of its capacity, due to poor harvest and reduction on the capital available to farmers’ (Gibson, 2007, pp.1). An interesting fact is that in 1982 a UCC team declared the plant unsafe, however, no actions were made. The plant continued to work with limited production and by July 1984 there was attempt to sell it and there were plans to dismantle some components to shipped to another plant but nothing happened. By the time of the disaster, only six of the original twelve were still working with the toxic gas and the number of supervisory personnel was also halved. No maintenance was placed on the night shift and instrument readings were taken every two hours
Cesar Rubio
27/11/12
Research Paper
After the events that happened in the Bhopal tragedy the night of December 2nd 1984, it is more than clear that Union Carbide Corporation have the responsibility of this tragedy and took an unethical business position, First, By making the wrong decisions about the planning of the factory because they did not invest to have effective security methods as they had on the plants located in developed countries. Second, because at the time of the disaster they were not conscious about the consequences and the way to act in the case of a disaster. Third, because even more than 25 years after the tragedy the company have not take full responsibility about the disaster.
Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) is an American multinational company which after and attempt of the Indian government to increase the investment of international companies in the country, built a pesticide plant in Bhopal in 1969. The company took advantage of building a plant in a third world country were the safety regulations for making a production plant are tremendously lower. Although, the plant was newer than the ones in U.S or Europe, the technology for the plant procedures was archaic, to lower the company investment. ‘By the early 1980s the Bhopal facility was operating at one-quarter of its capacity, due to poor harvest and reduction on the capital available to farmers’ (Gibson, 2007, pp.1). An interesting fact is that in 1982 a UCC team declared the plant unsafe, however, no actions were made. The plant continued to work with limited production and by July 1984 there was attempt to sell it and there were plans to dismantle some components to shipped to another plant but nothing happened. By the time of the disaster, only six of the original twelve were still working with the toxic gas and the number of supervisory personnel was also halved. No maintenance was placed on the night shift and instrument readings were taken every two hours
References: Marcouse, I, And Lines, D. (2002)’ Case Study 71: The Bhopal Tragedy’. In Business Case Studies AS and A Level (3rd ed.). Harlow: Longman. Gibson, K (2007) Ethics and Business, An introduction: An overview of business ethics: The Bhopal disaster. Cambridge University press. (Pp. 1-6) Cohuan et al (1994) Bhopal: The Inside Story: Carbide workers speak out on the world’s worst industrial disaster. Indiana press. Al-Jazeera (2010) Inside Story, Bhopal: Too little, Too late? : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT5S49WYAOc