Union Carbide Immediate Response Blog

Upon researching Union Carbide’s response to the Bhopal Disaster I find it peculiar how the company conducted itself when the crisis occurred and after. First of all, even though the focus of this is geared towards the tragedy when it actually occurred (1984) it is the company’s stance then and now that is relevant. The company has the same stance and maintains they are not responsible for the tragedy. To rehash Union Carbide’s stance – even 28 years later they said

“The 1984 gas leak in Bhopal was a terrible tragedy that understandably continues to evoke strong emotions even 28 years later. In the wake of the gas release, Union Carbide Corporation, and then chairman Warren Anderson, worked diligently to provide aid to the victims and set up a process to resolve their claims. All claims arising out of the release were settled 21 years ago at the explicit direction of and with the approval of the Supreme Court of India.The Bhopal plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide India, Limited (UCIL), an Indian company in which Union Carbide Corporation held just over half the stock. The other stockholders included Indian financial institutions and thousands of private investors in India. Union Carbide India Limited designed, built and managed the plant using Indian consultants and workers. In 1994, Union Carbide sold its entire stake in UCIL to Mcleod Russel India Limited of Calcutta, and UCIL was renamed Eveready Industries India Limited (Eveready Industries). As a result of the sale of its shares in UCIL, Union Carbide retained no interest in – or liability for – the Bhopal site.  The proceeds of the UCIL sale were placed in a trust and exclusively used to fund a hospital in Bhopal, which now provides specialist care to victims of the tragedy.After the disaster, plant owner UCIL obtained permission from the government to conduct clean-up work at the site and did so under the direction of Indian central and state government authorities. Eveready Industries continued this remediation effort until 1998.  That year, the Madhya Pradesh State Government, which owns and had been leasing the property to Eveready, took over the facility and assumed all accountability for the site, including the completion of any additional remediation.  What additional clean-up work, if any, has been undertaken since that time is unclear.Shortly after the gas release, Union Carbide launched an aggressive effort to identify the cause. Engineering consulting firm, Arthur D. Little, Inc., conducted a thorough investigation. Its conclusion: The gas leak could only have been caused by deliberate sabotage. Someone purposely put water in the gas storage tank, and this caused a massive chemical reaction. Process safety systems had been put in place that would have kept the water from entering into the tank by accident.Union Carbide, together with the rest of the chemical industry, has worked to develop and globally implement Responsible Care to help prevent such an event in the future by improving community awareness, emergency preparedness and process safety standards.” (bhopal.com/union-carbide-statements).

While Union Carbide feels sympathetic and started to become more diligent following the crisis it’s their attitude that should be noted. – Which is the fact they were indeed negligent but don’t believe they should take responsibility.

Also, I want to rehash the CEO’s actions following the crisis.

“Union Carbide CEO, Warren Anderson felt it was important for him personally to go to Bhopal to demonstrate the commitment the company had to the rescue effort and to the investigation. Most of his executives, and the U.S. State Department (p. 114) advised against his going. Corporate attorneys for Union Carbide were adamant that Anderson’s presence in Bhopal would only serve to tighten the connection between Union Carbide and the Bhopal tragedy.They and several senior executives continued to advise that, seeing how the Bhopal Plant was actually operated by a subsidiary of Union Carbide (Union Carbide India Limited) (Shrivastava, 1987, p. 51) and that the U.S. based corporation only owned about half the publicly traded stock in the Indian operation, the best strategy would be to distance Union Carbide’ leadership in the U.S. from the events in Bhopal. This might serve to limit future liability as the inevitable flood of lawsuits started to roll in and protect the corporation’s stock price.Warren Anderson rejected this advice (Kurzman, 1987, p. 115). He felt the scope of the tragedy was so significant and already connected in the mind of the public with Union Carbide that efforts to distance the Company from the tragedy were futile. Anderson traveled to India and was promptly arrested by Indian authorities upon arrival (Kurzman, p.108).The Company also experienced severe difficulties in getting accurate information from the plant in India regarding the specifics of the incident (Kurzman, p.89) Phone lines were scarce and already packed with calls. The Indian Government was not forthcoming with information, as they intended to shift blame away from themselves to Union Carbide (Shrivastava, p.97). As a result, the company’s first formal release regarding the Bhopal incident came one week after the tragedy (Smith, p. 154)”
(ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/02C2/Union%20Carbide.htm)

So what this article is saying that Warren Anderson, CEO in charge at the time of the tragedy, went over to the site because he wanted to show both the home and especially the host country that he and the company he was running were sympathetic towards the tragedy that occurred. These efforts were futile though and didn’t seem sincere enough to the people affected because after all Warren Anderson was able to go home at the end of the day where as many others who perished would no longer be able to. It’s crazy to read about how much chaos ensued after the crisis. While I can appreciate the CEO showing a bit of effort, the fact he did not influence the company’s lawyers or advisers to do something to help makes it seem like “it’s all talk but no action”