Unlike quarterly earnings, corporations do not factor in the magnitude and cost of a safety failure, preferring to count multiple deaths as a single incident.
Last year was the “best year in safety performance in our company’s history,” Transocean said.
Well, the people of the Gulf Coast might disagree.
“That’s like the owners of the Hindenburg claiming they had an ‘exemplary’ safety record — except for the dramatic explosion of the blimp over New Jersey in 1937,” the Times-Picayune wrote in an editorial Tuesday. The New Orleans newspaper also said Transocean had a “flaccid commitment” to safety. Read Tuesday’s editorial in the Times-Picayune.
Eleven workers lost their lives in an explosion April 20. The resulting spill gushed all summer and was the biggest in U.S. history.
“Victory Lapse – Transocean Bonuses
The Transocean executives responsible for the worst oil spill in U.S. history pat themselves on the back for an exemplary safety record.”
