B-24. Since there were apparently at least three deaths in the year prior to the major explosion, and an average of about one employee death per 16 months for the previous 10 years, how would you account for the fact that mandatory OSHA inspections missed these glaring sources of potential catastrophic events?
According to Dessler (2015), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) conduct unannounced inspections (p. 492). Considering there were three deaths at the Texas City plant in 2004, which should have been required to be reported to OSHA. Based on this information, OSHA should have inspected. OSHA (2004) inspected this plant in August 2004, and BP was fined $63,000 for a chemical release and fire, which OSHA indicated
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was preventable, but management allowed the hazardous conditions. This was seven months before the explosion. Government agencies’ budgets are tight, and this limits the amount of resources that can be used to monitor and re-inspect companies who continually violate safety laws. Also, another consideration may be not enough, OSHA employees trained in process safety. If the government agency can only fine companies, the companies will continue to operate. Clearly, BP has a long history of unsafe work environments. Until the government has the power to close down a refinery until corrective actions have been taken, companies like BP will continue to disregard the federal regulations and pay the fines. The following citations demonstrate BP’s attitude toward safety compliance. In 2009, OSHA (2012) fined BP an additional $50.6 million for not correcting 270 safety violations from the 2005 catastrophic event and cited them with 439 new safety violations. This amount was the highest they could penalize the company “due to the employer's extensive knowledge of the hazards, and OSHA regulations, and past events at the site” (para. 4). The 439 willful violations cost them $30.7 million, because a willful violation is when an employer has intentional disregard for requirements of the Act or “plain indifference to employee safety and health” (OSHA, 2012, para. 4). B-25. The text lists numerous suggestions for “how to prevent accidents.” Based on what you know about the Texas City explosion, what do you say Texas City tells you about the most important three steps an employer can take to prevent accidents? Dessler (2015) explains to prevent accidents a company must reduce unsafe conditions and reduce unsafe acts (p. 498). A job hazard analysis should be conducted to identify job hazards. Then, policies and checklists should be put in place along with a no tolerance rule for safety violations, along with OSHA standards. The company culture should stress safety first, and management, from the top down, should stress the importance of safety before profits. Dessler states, “Reducing unsafe conditions is the first line of defense” (p.503). BP’s culture did not make safety a priority. From the top, the company made profits the priority, so this mentality infected the culture to the lowest level creating a lackadaisical attitude about safety. BP took actions and reduced unsafe employee acts, but they did not reduce process safety. Process safety includes reducing unsafe working conditions which includes the equipment and warning systems. Management’s attitude about safety sets the tone for the entire company. BP needed to show safety as a top priority. A necessary expense of doing business safely is maintaining equipment and replacing old equipment. Company safety expectations and accountability should be clearly defined and clearly communicated. Additionally, BP can benefit from a company code of ethics, which everyone should follow. Keeping ethics in the forefront, I believe goes hand and hand with workplace safety. Considering the long history of BP’s workplace deaths, they need to incorporate lessons learned to prevent injuries and death as they move forward to a better, safer environment. Personal injuries are not an indicator for catastrophic events. BP needs to develop early warning systems to better protect employees from work hazards. B-26. Based on what you learned in Chapter 14, would you make any additional recommendations to BP over and above those recommendations made by the Baker panel and the CSB? If so, what would those recommendations be? In the long run, BP more than likely lost money by putting profit before safety. They lost money due to the fines and loss of public trust by which affects their stock prices and revenue. BP should develop a company code of ethics and ethical policies. Then, require every employee be trained in this area with yearly updates. Once a code is established, enforce the standards. An organizational culture change is needed to emphasize openness, trust, safety, and cooperation. BP should create ethical policies, train all employees, and enforce rules. Social responsibility continues to evade BP’s management as deaths and catastrophic events continue to occur over the long-term. Fairness and rightness to employees has not been upheld in the continuing unsafe work environments. B-27. Explain specially how strategic human resource management at BP seems to have supported the company’s broader strategic aims. What does this say about the advisability of always linking human resource strategy to a company’s strategic aims? Dessler (2015) defines strategic human resource management as “formulating and executing human resource policies and practices that produce the employee competencies and behaviors the company need to achieve its strategic aims” (p.
68). If you consider BP put profits before people by reducing budgets to maintain and replace equipment, had a high rate of overtime, and did not ensure adequate resources to sustain competent safety performance. BP’s strategic aims were to make a profit without consideration to employee or environmental safety. In this case, it was not wise to align HR strategies to company goals. BP’s HR strategy should have included planning to meet the required employees with the required safety competencies along with providing the company required safety and ethical training. Management training should include ethical, safety, corporate responsibility, and communication. The performance appraisal strategies should have included safety measurements and accountability and establishing better communication and trust between managers and employees. A Safety Division should be established along with policies and procedures governing all aspects of a safe work environment. Ultimately, helping management create a safe, responsible, accountable, team oriented, and trusting company
culture.
McGuire, C. (2011, April). Workplace Safety 100 Years Ago. Safety Compliance Letter(2524), 1-6. Retrieved April 22, 2014, from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=60166397&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Rehrig Pacific Company has been in business since 1913. Over 100 years in business, family owned and operated since then. Now on its 5 generation of owners. Rehrig Pacific has been in business since before the creation of OSHA and the OSH act of 1970. For years Rehrig worked and produced products and did their best to provide a safe workplace for their employees as they saw as extended family. There were many things done in the past that would not be okay to do in today’s safety world. Safety guards on machines were not used, at many times taken off to increase productivity and efficiency. Employees would climb on top of equipment was part of
The BP oil spill began with the explosion of the mobile offshore drilling unit known as the Deepwater Horizon, then operating in the Macondo Prospect Oil Field some 60 kilometers off the coast of the U.S. state of Louisiana, on April 29, 2010. The leak was capped on July 15, 2010, with a repair to the underwater wellhead ruptured by the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Thus, the BP oil spill lasted for about three months. During this time, roughly 5 million barrels of crude oil leaked from the wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico. The flow rate was not uniform, beginning...
In my opinion, BP's response to the oil spill wasn't the best. Plus their spokesperson Tony Hayward's comments did little to help the situation. The response should have been about damage limitations. Hayward's responses made the company seem aloof and unconcerend about the environmental damage being done. When they gave an amout of barrels that were leaking into the ocean, they gave the wrong amount which hurted their credibility. They deflected the blame for the accident. BP would call the oil spill the "Gulf of Mexico oil spill" while the rest of the world called it the "BP oil spill." They might have took the blame but they said it wasn't their accident however they would take responsibility to clean it up even though it wasn't their fault. I think the fact that they used social media to show show updates and progress was a smart move since it is probably now the biggest media median. However, everything else was not the best way to handle this whole situation.
In 2010, there was a huge oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico that we now know as the BP Oil Spill today. The Spill sent about 170 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill killed 11 men aboard the deep-water Horizon. The BP Oil Spill impacted the environment very negatively. There were different types of environmental impact as a result of the Oil Spill, but the two that grabbed my attention the most are the Polluted Air and the Contaminated Food Chain. The first impact that grabbed my attention was the Polluted Air. Because of the Oil Spill, the air around the surroundings neighborhoods was polluted. All the lightest chemicals in the oil that had spill evaporated within hours of the incidence forming air pollution particles. These particles that are in the air poses significant threats to the human health from being inhaled. The chemical found in the particles that was formed is known as Volatile, which has been known to cause respiratory irritation and central nervous system depression (Solomon & Janssen, 2010). The second impact that grabbed my attention was the contamination of the food chain, specifically the food chain of sea animals that lives near the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists found traces of oil in zooplanktons; this could only mean that the sea creature has had contact with the spilled oil. According to the Staff at Houston Business Journal (2012), “Baby fish and shrimp feed on the tiny, drifting zooplankton, and then introduce contamination and pollution to the larger sea creatures in the food web.” With these findings, it isn’t going to take long before the baby fishes become grown and caught by fishermen and before we know it, it’s on our dinner plate. And here we are eating fishes w...
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.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was formed as an agency of the federal government that is charged with protecting workers from recognized safety hazards within the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created as a result of passage of the “Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 in response to dangerous working conditions across the nation and as a culmination of decades of reform” (Walter, 2011, para. 5). President Richard Nixon signed the act into law on December 29, 1970 and The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was officially established on April 28, 1971 (Walter, 2011). During the 41 years on the job, The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has identified and addressed numerous work hazards, as well as provided solutions to mitigate and/or avoid placing workers in unnecessary danger. OSHA regulates as enforces regulations throughout the country, however the agency does declare that “states can run their own safety and health programs as long as those programs are at least as effective as the federal program” (http://www.dol.gov/compliance/laws/comp-osha.htm). The states that choose to implement their own version of the occupational safety and health plan are referred to as OSHA states, whereas those who implement no plan are required to follow the federal regulations, as set forth by OSHA. OSHA effects all workers and employers in the United States, as the desired effect of the Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act is “to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resources” (Williams-Steiger Occupational Safety and Health Act, 1970). OS...
This paper will show how the facility will continue to stay abreast of the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) standards. The paper will also take a look at the activities and the frequency of training and audits that the hospital will conduct throughout the year. This paper will address the possibility of the fines the hospital has received and what causes the fines. The OSHA is an organization that provides a safe work environment for all staff members.
I have done an extensive search on the internet finding much of your needed information for the upcoming OSHA audit. You should find it helpful in answering all of the questions you had. I have attached the first page of every website in case you would like to check them out in more detail.
OSHA regulations give full disclosure to employees about workplace hazards. Businesses that produce or import chemicals of any sort must review the dangers associated with these chemicals and have them labeled accordingly. They must also prepare material safety data sheets to go with any delivered chemicals. This will describe technical information as well as hazardous effects from exposure and the appropriate protective measures. Any employees wh...
“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 the summer of 2010, the petroleum industry was shaken by one of the largest disasters in history known as the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. This resulted in the killing of eleven people, injuring of seventeen and an immeasurable damage to the ocean and the surrounding communities. BP had to immediately respond to the crisis and handle their financial and reputational risks.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act’s mission is to assure the safety and health of America's workers by setting and enforcing standards; providing training, and education; and encouraging continual improvement in workplace safety and health (OSHA.org). OSHA covers an extremely wide array of workers, from construction workers to office workers. However when the act was first passed it was not heavily enforced and lacked inspectors. In 1970 because there were three times as many fish and game wardens than there were OSHA inspectors, people said that the trout and quail were more protected than Americas working men and women (Bennett, Alexander, & Hartman, 2003). Though today OSHA has approximately 2100 inspectors, plus complaint discrimination investigators, engineers, physicians, educators, standards writers, and other technical and support pers...
1. What external environment (general, industry and competitive) segments do you think BP considered or did not consider prior to their drilling off the Gulf coast. What should the wedding business owners now consider in their external environment?
Ensuring the health and safety of employees is of primary importance to the Organization. Organization is committed to maintaining safe facilities, sponsoring appropriate training programs, and providing necessary safety equipment. In addition, Administration and staff shall cooperatively develop appropriate procedures and regulations for ensuring employees' health and safety, with special emphasis on the handling of potentially hazardous equipment or substances and for investigating and reporting any accidents and mishaps. All newly employed staff shall be required to comply with the physical examination. Every employee must provide annually, at a minimum, an updated health history of current health problems.