Case
BP Workers ill-trained for Dangers
When a unit at BP’s Texas City refinery unexpectedly shut down during a power outage a few weeks ago, newly hired operators froze in confusion, not knowing how to handle the potentially dangerous situation. “I never saw so many scared faces in my life,” said one seasoned operator. “These were brand-new operators. Some of these guys had not been trained, and they did not know what to do,” said the operator, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.
Indeed, BP’s training of its workers—who operate and oversee some of the most dangerous equipment in the country—falls short of providing them with the expertise they need to safely do their jobs, said a panel of experts headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. The safety review panel was formed at the behest of federal investigators looking into the March 2005 blast at the Texas City plant, where 15 people were killed and scores more seriously injured.
BP spokesman Scott Dean confirmed that an outage happened a few days before Christmas but said that all units were brought down and restarted safely and without incident. “Regardless of someone’s opinion of how people appeared, they did react, followed procedures, and took action in a professional and safe manner,” Dean said. “No one was injured, and there was no significant environmental impact apart from the flaring that was reported and standard practice when you have a power failure.”
Nonetheless, in its scathing report, released after a 15-month investigation, the panel lambasted BP’s training programs—not only at the Texas City site but also at four other refineries the company operates nationwide—saying that a lack of knowledge among workers, supervisors, and managers was at the root of many safety woes. “The panel believes that the effects of widespread deficiencies in process safety training and education have manifested themselves in a number of ways at BP’s U.S. refineries,” the report states. BP has acknowledged training shortfalls at Texas City, and the Baker report notes several steps that the company already has taken to beef up its education programs nationwide.
Among the encouraging moves is that a new company vice president in the Safety and Operations Group told panelists that better training for supervisors “is one of the first programs” that would be implemented, the report says. Further, the company has said it has implemented a new “leadership development” program and other enhanced training initiatives at Texas City. “During the past 18 months, BP has made significant progress in implementing a comprehensive program at its Texas City refinery that includes investment in people, plant, and process,” Dean said. But the Baker panel’s report indicates that the oil giant—whose refineries have the capability of processing roughly 1.3 million barrels of crude a day into gasoline, jet fuel, and other products—has widespread training problems to fix.
According to interviews with workers, newly hired operators sometimes were trained by inexperienced supervisors, the report said. Operators were promoted to supervisor positions without being required to demonstrate that they understood the units they were overseeing. And engineers “routinely indicated that they believed they were not given sufficient training to do their jobs.” Outdated manuals were being used, and workers often asked in vain for more mentoring, the report says.
At Texas City, more than one in three hourly operators—or 35 percent—agreed in a survey done by the panel that “the training that I received does not provide me with a clear understanding of the process safety risks at my refinery.” There and elsewhere, training too often has meant requiring workers to take self-administered computer courses while mentoring and so-called gun drills designed to simulate emergencies don’t happen often enough, the report said. “At most of BP’s U.S. refineries the implementation of and overreliance on BP’s computer-based training contributes to inadequate process safety training of refinery employees,” the panel found. Computer training seemed to be preferred, the panel found, because it provided a quick and easy way to prove compliance with federal training regulations to inspectors. But what on paper was adequate training in reality was not, it added.
The report indicates that Texas City workers agree. “In operations, it can’t be like that,” said the experienced operator who witnessed the recent power outage. “It has to be hands-on. You have to have face-to-face training. One operator is responsible for thousands of valves, and you can’t have a computer explain all of that.”
Part of BP’s training problems, the panel concluded, stems from a lack of financial backing and workforce. That was especially evident at Texas City, where the training budget plummeted from $2.8 million in 1998 to $1.7 million in 2005, the year of the blast, the report stated. Full-time employees devoted to training also dipped from 28 to 9 in the same period. Even then, some of those training coordinators spent as little as 5 percent of their time actually training, the report said. Steve Erickson, executive director of the Gulf Coast Process Technology Alliance, said BP isn’t the only oil company that has reduced training positions in recent years as more training has been done by computer. Erickson, whose alliance advocates the hiring of degreed process technicians, said computer training is a good alternative to classroom training when it comes to “general” instruction. But computers should not take the place of well-qualified people who know the peculiarities of a specific plant’s equipment, he said. He said simulators, similar to those used in the aviation industry, are very helpful because they teach workers how to react in emergency situations. Simulation technology had been “horrendously expensive” but has become more affordable in recent years, Erickson said.
Union officials hope to finalize new training agreements with BP at a meeting at the end of this month, said Kim Neuberger, coordinator of the United Steelworkers’ Triangle of Prevention Program. He said the union safety trainers have long favoured a more hands-on approach to training than the use of computer programs and testing. “We train on the small-group level,” he said. “That’s the way adults learn.”
1. What would Faden and Beauchamp say about BP’s worker safety practices? Explain.
2. What would Boatright say about BP’s worker safety practices? Explain.
3. How would you characterize BP’s attitude toward its workers at the Texas City refinery? Is that attitude ethically acceptable in your judgment? Explain.
4. Does BP’s attitude seem more consistent with the stockholder view of the purpose of the corporation or the stakeholder view? Why? Explain.