Google Vs China

ERIN BROCKOVICH

The movie "Erin Brockovich", which is based on a true story, is very intriguing and very interesting as it brings different ethical issues present in different communities and businesses nowadays. At first, I thought the movie is a boring one since it is an old movie. But as the movie continues, I find it very relevant and was able to capture my attention and interest as it focuses on the story of Erin Brockovich, who is single mother struggling to find a job, and how she was able to unveil different health issues that must be faced by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). The movie became more interesting as Erin doesn't have a degree on law and her main goal is just to earn a living for her family. But through the process and while doing her clerical work in the law firm of Ed Masry, she gained interest on different medical cases. And after spending numerous hours examining the papers, she was able to uncover health problems faced by the community which can be linked to the operations done by PG&E in Hinkley.

PG&E operates in a community in Hinkley, California and because of their unethical way of doing business, their operations resulted to having negative externalities which affected several families in the Hinkley community. These negative externalities include various health problems experienced by the families in the communities which also affected those innocent children. Based on examinations done, most of these sicknesses and diseases experienced by the people in the community are linked to the harmful chemical (hexavalent chromium) used by PG&E's plant in Hinkley which was exposed to the water system that runs through the whole community.

Connecting the movie to ethics, there are many ethical issues presented in the movie regarding the way PG&E do its operations and their different business practices. First, PG&E attempts to stop the investigation of Masry's law firm about their use of a harmful chemical substance by sending a representative to Masry's office and buying out a family who is severely affected by their operations. Second, Erin and her children were threatened by a person who is assumed to be working for PG&E because the incident happened after Erin discovered PG&E wrongdoings and also, Erin accumulated valuable information that can be used against PG&E as a strong evidence about their fault regarding the health problems faced by the community.

Other business ethics presented in the movie are bribery (i.e. Jensen family, families visiting doctors), deception (denial or deception), being selfish, and harming the environment (contamination of water system, issue about the sustainability of operations). It can be seen in the movie how PG&E operate and disregard the condition of other people in conducting their operations. In short, they didn't for other people in a way that they will do everything just to earn a profit and survive. However, there is one notable employee in PG&E who contributed a lot regarding the lawsuit against PG&E. Although he is commanded to destroy some documents, he knows that it is unethical to destroy important documents as it might become important in the future so he saved the documents.