Health and Safety Supervisors and Their Ethical Behavior - Research Paper Example

Health and safety supervisors and their ethical behavior Ethics and ethical behavior is gaining tremendous importance these days in the business sector. An underlying cause of this is the recent spur of issues that have came up, showing that there is a growing number of managers who are not being ethically responsible in their own fields. Although there are plenty of laws, rules and regulations in place to keep them on their toes, when it comes to health and safety standards, there are still big catastrophes that are happening every other day showing there is a difference in the law and the action that is being taken for that respective law.

Health and safety standards are very important for all the concerned members of the organization. All the stakeholders, be it the customers or the suppliers, the stock holders or the employees; all have their vested interest in maintaining a healthy level of health and safety standards in their organization. Managers and supervisors are especially trained to provide such a level of safety to their employees and all concerned stakeholders. Health and safety supervisors or managers are actually required to overlook specific standards and keep a check on things.

Ethically and lawfully, they are required to report any issues with the health and safety program. As by law, every industry has their own set of rules and regulations, requirements and standards in place; a manager’s job is to make sure they are all carried out for the safety for everyone who is involved in the system. However, it has been seen that even though organizations have set up rules and procedures complementing the laws that are in place, there has been neglect on the end of managers, related to the continuity of the actions or reporting.

Typically, a health and safety manager’s responsibility is to overlook the operations and check if the necessary laws and regulations are being properly enforced. If there are machines and tools involved, they need to keep a check on their workability and if operators are using their precautions. The responsibilities differ in other tertiary terms; UK and USA have different law regulations with different responsibilities for supervisors. The bottom line remains the same; it is the ethical and lawful duty of the supervisor to take care of health and safety standards in all ways possible (Wilson, 2003) Health and safety managers have a lawful as well as moral/ethical responsibility to maintain the laws in the organization.

If they are unable to do so, they risk the lives of many others. Therefore, it is their duty to make sure they are doing their work, with such dedication as they would do if their own families were directly involved in the repercussions of their neglect. Such a dedication should be present for the mankind. Sadly, history shows this has not been the case; lack of proper ethical management by the employees has led to incidents such as the BP Oil Spill, Bhopal-India Accident, Alaska Exxon Valdez oil spill.

One of the highlights of the year 2010 was the oil spill that took place in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill took place for more than three months. At the end of the fiasco, British Petroleum took all the responsibility for the oil spill, admitting that they had some issues on their side that led to the biggest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. The oil spill has caused a huge loss to the fishing industry and the marine habitat of the region. With their public relation strategy working, they have agreed to take all the costs of rehabilitation of that area on themselves.

The supervisor of the oil well has reputedly testified saying that he had seen a problem in the hydraulic system that was supposed to control the blowout preventer. According to him, he had notified the required people as soon as possible but no necessary action was taken. Reports also say that much of the drilling equipment was out of service for long periods of time and may have had some problems in it too. The real cause of the oil spill leakage is still not known, however, the identification of the problem with the hydraulic system and the practices that BP follows are certainly under scrutiny.

The supervisors should have been ethical in understanding the seriousness of the situation they were in, the environment they were working in and acted accordingly (Ben, 2010). The gas leak that happened in India in 1984 is a prime example of supervisor negligence. A toxic gas leaked from the plant and affected thousands of people. There had been previous warnings, many gas leaks with workers dying in the process and reports of workers not being asked to follow safety standards. The health and safety were clearly not being followed, resulting in a mass casualty incident that affected people till years.

There have been approximately 11000 deaths due to the gas leak and related issues. On the part of the safety supervisors, this was a heinous crime, where they did not care about the well being of the people and were primarily concerned with the financial stability of the organization. Repairs were not done to many pipes due to the fact that they would just prove to be too expensive. Such an incident could have been avoided if the ethical behaviour of the supervisors was different; they considered their job as an ethical responsibility and not just a job (BBC, 2010).

To this date, people are having health issues in the city and eight workers from the company have been convicted which are deemed insufficient by the NGOs in India. (Subodh, 2009) In both the cases, one can fairly say that it is more important to not just follow the law, but be ethical and maintain safety standards because one cares about the society and the environment. As a health and safety supervisor, the added responsibility of keeping the lives of hundreds of people safe should be recognized.

Otherwise, such issues will keep on happening and innocent lives will be lost. It is highly important for a health supervisor to be morally and ethically conscious, apart from being lawfully correct. References Wilson, L., et al. (2003). Industrial safety and risk management. University of Alberta. The book talks about how the industrial workplace can be safe and healthy for the workers and how it should be according to the standards set by the law as well as ethically responsible. Varma, Subodh.

(2009, December 3). Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Retrieved November 14th, 2010, from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Bhopal-Gas-Tragedy-Endless-nightmare/articleshow/5294330.cms An article by an editor of Times of India, who provides a summary of the events that took place in 1984 relating to the Bhopal Gas leak. The aftermath and the situation of the place almost 25 years after the incident is also provided. Bhopal Information Centre. (2010). Bhopal Information Centre. Retrieved November 15th 2010, from http://www.bhopal.com/ A comprehensive detailed information centre that is being maintained by Union Carbide Corporation provides an official figure value, the litigation procedures and settlements news to the public.

Casselmen, B. (2010, July 21). BP supervisor says Big Safety Device Flawed. Retrieved November 15th 2010, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723604575379451589727916.html An online account of the report that has the BP supervisor admitting there had been certain issues with the big safety machine at the rig; however, the exact relation to those issues and the spill is not found yet. Batty, D., Goldenburg. S. (2010, June 19). BP oil spill caused by negligence or misconduct, says drilling partner.

Retrieved November 15, 2010, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/19/gulf-oil-spill-anarkdo-petroleum-blames-bp An article covering the news that one of the trading partners of BP have accused BP and their supervisors for being negligent of the issues at the rig that may have caused the oil spill to happen in the first place.