Massey Coal

Massey Coal Case A person is mor each(prenominal)y accountable for an injury or a wrong if 1. the person caused or helped caused it, or foundered to prevent it when he or she could have and should have 2. the person did so knowing what he or she was doing 3. the person did so of his or her give free will Question 1 Massey Energy alliance should be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 exploitrs. The U. S. Mine Safety and Health Administration issued too much citations for the violations in the taps Massey Energy Company owned.The company always challenged several of the citations and corrected enough of the significant and substantial violations to allow its total violations to fall on a lower floor the level needed to force its closure. This means in terms of safety, the company moreover make significant safety change in order for their mines non to be totally cozyd but non make a major safety changes in order to follow all the guidelines of MSHA and eliminate all possible endangerment in the mines. Massey should be held morally responsible because of the lack of hunting expedition the company put in to improve the safety quality in their mines.Question 2 Don Blankenship should be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners. Don wrote a memo stating that managers should concentrate on producing coal and non waste time responding to requests to touch on things. It was not clear what had ignited the explosion of April 5 but it was almost certain that is was caused by accumulations of methane and coal dust. If Don had enforced the managers to focused more on the safety of the mines and the miners so that they ar up to MSHA safety standards rather than only to concentrate on producing coal, the April 5 incident could well be prevented.Don Blankenship lack of sustentation for the miners and prioritizing profit over safety be enough reasons for him to be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners. Question 3 M SHA should somehow be held morally responsible for the deaths of the 29 miners. First of all, the company does not operate up to the standard when it comes to protecting the lives of the miners. The way was understaffed and its inspectors were over head for the hillsed. Also, the week before the mine explosion, half of the agencys inspectors failed to attend required training courses and the agency neither kept track of their attendance nor did it sanction them.Not only that, but the company cant shut down a mine unless the total violations of these coal mine companies argon above the level needed to force its closure. Most of the coal mine companies challenged MSHAs citations and corrected enough of the significant violations so they fall below the shut-down level. This is irresponsible on MSHAs side. Thy should enforce a tighter and stricter rules when it comes to violations. MSHA should not just compel fines on the company but they should be more stern when it comes to safety v iolations by the company.Also, waiting until there is too much violations by the company to close the mines will endanger the lives of the miners. When people lives are on stake, MSHA surely are not up to the standard of that task. Question 4 The miners had some idea of the risks of running(a) in the Upper Big Branch mine however that is not enough for them to be held any responsibility for their own deaths. Don Blankenship had released a memo to the managers specifically stating to ignore wasting time responding to requests to fix things. Managers then would be panic-struck to object to Don Blankenship requests since they could get fired.During the congressional hearing, survivors and relatives of those who had died testified. Most of the testimony states that they are afraid to go to management and express their fears of the lack of safety in the mine. They are afraid management would look for ways to fire them. So afraid of being fired, miners should not be held responsible for their own deaths because of the lack of freedom they have to express their feelings. Question 5 There is a huge residual between mines without unions like the Massey mines and other mines that had unions.The huge unlikeness is the safety regulations. A union would fought for better enforcement of safety regulations to protect the miners. According to the testimony of Gary Quarles, the huge difference is when MSHA inspector comes to the mines. When an MSHA inspector comes onto a Massey mine property, the code words go out weve got a man on the property. When the word goes pit all effort is made to correct any deficiencies or direct the inspectors attention away from any deficiencies. Also when an MSHA inspector comes to a Massey mine, he/she is only accompanied by Massey people.No coal miner at the mine can point out areas of concern to the MSHA inspector. While in union mines, workers at the mine would accompany the MSHA inspectors during the inspections. Workers also have the accountability to refuse to work in unsafe conditions without fear of their job. Clearly, in mines without unions like Massey, the people are trying to grass MSHA inspectors to that they would not get citations for different violations. Seeing the huge difference in enforcing safety regulations, all mines should be forced to have a union. Question 6The mediocre salary for all jobs in the United States is $43,000 while miners in the Upper Big Branch mine were paid $60,000. Even though a work of a miner required no more than a high school education, the risk of their job is very high, probably the highest. Wages will fail to earmark a level of compensation proportional to the risks of a job when markets do not register risks because the risks are not yet cognize. For example, the health risks convolute in mining or using a certain mineral such as manganese may not be known until more years afterward. In this case, wages will not fully compensate for risks.Workers also might acce pt risks unknowingly because they do not have becoming accept to information concerning those risks. Workers dont have the money or the tool to collect information needed to assess the risks of the jobs they accept. Workers might accept known risks out of desperation because they lack the mobility to enter other less risky industries or because they lack information of the alternatives available to them. Massey is only paying $17,000 more than the number of all jobs in the United States. Knowing all the risks as a miner such as exposure to methane nd all other fatal gases and also the high rate of accidents in Upper Big Branch mine due to poor safety regulations, a wage of $60,000 surely does not cover the all the risks that the miners are exposed to. Only $17,000 more on the wage of the miners than the average wage of all the jobs in the U. S. is not an ethical progression by the company. There is a far more safer job even though they are lower in wages. But the $60,000 in wage s is not worth it for the miners considering all the job risks Massey doesnt account for. So, Massey was not handling job risk in an ethically appropriate manner. Question 7Massey Energy Company did not fulfill a lot of ethical obligations. The company violated the ethics of care. An ethic of care says they we should care for those dependent on and related to us. The miners are dependent of the managers and CEO of the company to enforce tighter and stricter safety regulations, however Massey failed to do so. The company violated the ethics of pollution control. Massey was faced with the problem of disposing millions of gallons of coal slurry the mines were producing. They did not control their pollution of coal slurry into the environment, thus violating the ethics of pollution control.Massey also violated different rights. Positive rights state that duties of other agents (Massey) to provide the holder of the right (the miners) with whatever he or she needs to freely pursue his or her interests. The miners interest is to have a high quality safety regulations in the mines and Massey failed to provide this interest. Massey also failed the fairness of wages and the fairness of employee working conditions. The wage they are paying to the miners are not enough to cover all the job risks the miners are exposed to in the mine. Massey also failed to provide proper working condition in the Upper Big Branch.