Question

1. In your judgement, and given only the facts described in this case, should the management of Massey energy Company be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners? Explain in detail.
2. Suppose that nothing more is learned about the explosion other than what is described in this case. Do you think Don Blankership should be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners? Explain in detail.
3. Given only the facts described in this case, should the MSHA be held morally responsible (at least in part) for the deaths of the 29 miners? Explain in detail.
4. List all of the ethical obligations that you believe the management of Massey Energy did not fulfill. Explain the ethical basis of each of the obligations on your list. Explain in detail.

Case Study 8.1: Death at Massey Energy Company It happened around 3:00 P.M. on Monday, April 5, in the Upper Big Branch coal mine at Montcoal, West Virginia, one of several mines owned by the Massey Energy Company. The morning shift of miners was still in the process of changing places with the afternoon shift. Members of each group were being shuttled in and out of the entrance in transport vehicles called "mantrips." Nine of the morning shift miners had just come out of one of the mantrips, and were walking out of the mine when they suddenly felt a blast of air blow past them, so strong it almost pushed them over. They all knew what it meant. Turning around, several hurried back into the mine, and shortly came upon seven of their fellow miners, dead, next to the mantrip that had just brought them up from below. Two others were alive but injured. Company Background From the first day after the explosion, newspapers had been reporting that Massey Energy mines in general, and the Upper Big Branch mine in particular, had been cited thousands of times for safety violations by the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), an agency of the federal government charged with overseeing employee safety in the mining industry. In fact, the Upper Big Branch mine had been cited more than 50 times for safety violations during the previous month alone, and many of Massey Energy's other coal mines had equally poor safety records. Massey Energy Company was founded in 1920 in Richmond, Virginia, as a coal-brokering business. The company acquired its first coal mine in 1945. In 1981, the company was acquired by Fluor Corporation, and with its backing, the mining business rapidly grew. In 1992, Don Blankenship, who had joined the company in 1982 was appointed chair and CEO of Massey Energy. In 2000, he oversaw Massey Energy's transformation into an independent company when it split off from Fluor Corporation's non-coal-related businesses. Over the next several years, the company continued to grow and by 2010, it was annually producing about 40 million tons of low-sulfur bituminous coal in 42 underground mines and 14 surface mines scattered throughout West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia. Massey Energy processed and distributed the coal through 22 processing and shipping centers. The company had 5,851 employees, and in 2009 it had net profits of $104 million on total revenues of $2.7 billion.2 Under the leadership of CEO Don Blankenship, the company's operations had aroused considerable controversy, much of it related to their impact on the environment. In 1984, when Blankenship was president of Rawl, a subsidiary of Massey Energy, he was faced with the problem of disposing of the millions of gallons of coal slurry the mines were producing. Coal slurry is a watery mud that runs off as coal is washed to remove its impurities. The slurry carries with it several toxic substances commonly found in coal, such as arsenic, lead, and cadmium. Blankenship came up with the idea of disposing of the slurry by piping it deep into abandoned coal mines. However, there were cracks running through the walls and floors of the mines, and apparently the toxics in the slurry leaked through the cracks and ended up contaminating the underground aquifer that fed the wells from which the surrounding communities drew their drinking water. The company was forced to pay $3.5 million in fines for the environmental disaster it had created. Then, in 2000 the dam of a small lake filled with coal slurry collapsed, sending 250 million gallons of toxic slurry flooding through Kentucky's rivers, leaving behind over 100 miles of contaminated waterways and destroying the drinking water sources of surrounding towns. That same year, two of its other coal mines had to pay fines for contaminating West Virginia's waterways. In 2006, the company paid additional fines of $1.4 million to settle five environmental lawsuits and 14 environmental enforcement actions. In 2008, the company paid another $20 million to settle a government lawsuit charging the company with 4,000 violations of the Clean Water Act.3

Answer 1

Question:- In your judgment, and given only the facts described in this case, should the management of Massey energy Company be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners? Explain in detail

Answer:- The explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine had resulted in the death of 29 miners. It was said that the combustion was caused by the high methane levels that made the methane gas became explosive. However, the increasing level of methane was very quick that only in three minutes, it changed from zero to five percent. Inside the mine, it contained a lot of toxic and explosive gas, such as methane, coal dust, and carbon monoxide. methane was very risky for the workers’ safety and health. The management of Massey company is morally responsible for the death of their 29workers as it neglected the standard and the regulation regarding the miners’ safety. The company was deemed to be reckless and negligence as it had poor ventilation of coal dust and methane gas, improper escape ways, could not control the coal dust, improper protection from the roof falls, as well as allowing the accumulation of explosive materials. The lack of acknowledgment from the management towards the importance of fulfilling the standard was one of the biggest cause of the explosion. The company also was accused to have 50 safety violations in a month prior to the combustion only in the Upper Big Branch Mine.

Moreover, Massey company had a bad record regarding employee safety. It had 4.79until 9.78 accident injury rates per 200,000 workers, while the average rate in the US is 4.03 injuries per 200,000 workers. The investigators said that the company failed to fix the conveyor belt that caught fire, allowed the combustible materials that fed the fire to accumulate, did not provide the carbon monoxide monitors that could notify the miners about the fire, did not provide fire extinguishers, and also bad controls of the ventilation. There was a lot of lawsuits charges directed to the company because of its recklessness. If the company was not reckless and it willingly complies with the safety standard and regulations, the incident might not have happened or at least the damage would be less than what had happened

Question:- Suppose that nothing more is learned about the explosion other than what is described in this case. Do you think Don Blankership should be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners? Explain in detail

Answer:- “If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers, or anyone else to do anything other than run coal… you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that the coal pays the bills.” -CEO Blankenship- (Velasquez,2012)

By looking at the memo above, it is clear that Don, CEO at the moment, value profits instead of safety. It is also stated in the case that he refuses to react on several reports regarding safety violations. Although it is not 100% his fault (we believe that company’s culture also contributes to the accident by taking into account that it is not the first time they had issues with safety), we do believe that his role as the head of the company plays an important part in the accident. If and only if he reacts to the reports, perhaps the possibility of such accident to occur can be reduced.

According to the ethics by virtue, as a CEO, he should take responsibility in how its company runs the business. As a CEO, he should not close his eyes and be more concern about the company-related issue. If he is only a worker, he can act like nothing happen and let it slide like what other workers did according to the case. The fact that he did nothing while he knows there is a problem in his company’s operation make him morally responsible for the death of those people.

Question:- Given only the facts described in the case above, should the MSHA be held morally responsible (at least in part) for the deaths of 29 miners?

Answer:- As stated in the case, MSHA has the Authority to close down the mine if the mine had a substantial number of citation. But then, MSHA had never forced the entire mine to shut down in order to make significant changes. However, it is not necessarily the fault of MSHA, since when the MSHA inspector came to the mine, there is a no coal worker that accompany them, only Massey’s employee. Therefore, MSHA also morally responsible for the deaths of 29 miners, but only in a part.

Question:- Lists all the ethical obligations that you believe the management of Massey Energy Company didn’t fulfill. Explain the ethical basis of each of the obligations on your list

Rights: Massey energy company didn’t fulfill the right of the worker to be a safety at work. The worker has the right to be safe from injury, or even safe from death at work. Don utilizes the worker only to achieve the desired ends, and he disregards the safety regulation within the organization. Don also didn’t allow their workers to join the union. Even though he knows that a labor union can make the workplace more safety.

Utilitarianism: Under utilitarianism, an action can be measured using cost-and-benefit analysis that can maximize the utility of society. The action taken by Don wasn’t giving any benefit to society. He neglects the safety workplace just because he wants to push the coal production process. His business operation also caused a million gallons of coal slurry when they produce coal. The coal slurry contaminates the ground aquifer, which is used by the surrounding citizen as the drinking water reserve. Because of this event, the company had to pay the fines imposed on the organization. The cost absolutely exceeds the benefit.

Justice: There must be equal distribution of burden and benefit, under justice ethical approach. In the case of Massey, the one that receives the highest benefit is Don; he got a lot of money from the reckless business operation. While the entity that receives, the burden is the company, the worker, and the worker’s relative. Because of Don, the company paid a lot of fines, the worker lost their lives and the current worker’s life is in jeopardy, and the worker’s relative lose their beloved ones

KINDLY RATE THE ANSWER AS THUMBS UP. THANKS A LOT.