Corporate social responsibility at Parker

Parker Chemicals and Waste Management Ltd specialises in removing, treating and disposing of
highly toxic waste materials and effluent taken from a variety of industrial and commercial
customers. The company also manages the breakdown, detoxification and disposal of highly toxic,
dangerous, and in many cases, potentially lethal chemicals and materials produced as byproducts
by the defence, pesticide and paint industries. Parker additionally services the National Health
Service, disposing of such items as syringes, bandages, drug waste and similar garbage from
hospitals.

This is clearly a controversial and potentially highly dangerous field of activities in which to be
involved. Parker has continuously been the focus of interest from the media and pressure groups
that it has to manage. Questions are always being raised about environmental concerns, the
standards of waste treatment and management, from the point of view of the locality as well as in
terms of employment practice and security. Parker employs a highly effective press and public
relations function to take care of this. There is also a visitor centre, regular contact with the
institutions of the local villages and towns, support and sponsorship for schools and clubs, and a
high-quality leisure and social centre, run by the company but open to anyone, whether employed
by the company or not.

Parker is the wholly-owned UK waste management subsidiary of a major international utilities

organisation, GFX Inc. GFX is based in the United States; its European regional headquarters are
in Basle, Switzerland. The company's UK facilities are situated on a remote coastal location in
eastern England. Parker is the largest employer in the area, providing 1,500 jobs in what is
otherwise a coastal and rural community, consisting mainly of small, scattered and remote villages.
Without Parker there would be very little regular or steady employment, although there is a nuclear
power station 30 miles away.

Parker’s production, detoxification and recycling facilities are state-of-the-art, totally secure and
reliable. To date, the company has only had one fatality as the result of operations; this was ten
years ago, when a member of staff contracted a fatal lung disease having got stuck in a chemical
tank while cleaning it. This accident caused widespread and adverse media coverage. In turn it
caused Parker to undertake a full review of all its activities and practices – and since then, the
company has had no similar problems or anything that could remotely be called an industrial
accident.

Parker is a very profitable and prosperous company, and takes waste from clients all over the UK.
As well as providing access and egress for clients with their own transport, Parker has its own fleet
of highly secure lorries and tankers. It also has a branch-line railway connection, which brings in
high-volume wastes and then takes the treated products away for re-use and recycling.

All employees are paid very well. The pay rates for unskilled work, including catering and cleaning
staff as well as labourers, start at £12 per hour, and there are shift and unsocial hours bonuses
and incentives paid on top of this. Salaries for professional, managerial, expert and engineering
staff start at £32,000 per annum. The company general manager is paid £125,000 per annum. For
many years now, Parker and its parent company have paid a performance and profit-related bonus
twice a year to all members of staff, equivalent to two months’ wages or salary. This has been paid
regardless of length of service or hours worked.
The overwhelming majority of the staff who work at the company are satisfied and
productive, and many of them (in all grades) are unswervingly loyal and fiercely
proud of their association and employment with the company. Absenteeism is negligible, and levels
and quality of performance, both collectively and individually, are very high. Professional and
occupational training and development are available on demand and the company always pays for
everything.

The company recognises the controversial and dangerous nature of its products and activities, and
as stated above, for the past ten years it has committed itself to absolute standards of safety and
security. Nevertheless, there are always concerns about its activities – and in recent months the
company has had to face up to the following issues:

A report commissioned by the EU found unacceptably high levels of pollution in the sea and
beaches around the company’s UK facility.
A research project and report by the local university has established that there may be a
leukaemia cluster in the villages around the company’s UK facility; with some evidence that
there is a higher incidence of leukaemia among the children of present and former members of
staff than elsewhere.
In spite of the loyalty of staff, there clearly exists the beginning of a tendency to blame all
illnesses and injuries on the activities of the company, whether in fact these were incurred at
work or not.
There is an enduring general question of security around the access and egress of the
company’s products in these times of heightened security alerts and terrorist threats and
environmental extremists.

This has led to concerns in the wider community – and the impression is beginning to form that
there is the makings of a division between those who work for the company (who all remain just as
loyal as before) and those who do not. This has been compounded by the extensive
redevelopment of one of the villages ten miles away, which is being turned into a commuter village
to the nearby city. New residents are concerned about the present and enduring effects of Parker’s
activities. Some of them are calling for the facility to be shut down. Additionally, people from the
other villages – especially young people who would make up the next generation of Parker
employees – are beginning to drift off elsewhere, with the consequence that, for the first time, the
company has had to face recruitment and retention difficulties.

Hilary Machin has just joined Parker as HR manager. Aged 35, she has moved into the area for the
first time. Hilary has worked hard to familiarise herself with the local culture, customs, habits and
pressures faced by the staff and the communities. She has also had to familiarise herself very
quickly with the issues of security, pollution, staff perceptions, leukaemia clusters and other injuries
and illnesses, as well as beginning to take steps to address the impending recruitment and
retention issues, which if not tackled may lead to a crisis in a fairly short period of time.

Your task

1 Outline the full range of responsibilities that companies such as Parker – working in
extreme and often controversial industrial and commercial sectors – ought to accept and
discharge.
2 From the point of view of what is stated here, how seriously does Parker appear to identify,
accept and discharge its full range of responsibilities to staff and to the wider community?
 3 Identify the issues that Hilary Machin ought to tackle now, and suggest ways
in which these issues might be tackled effectively in the light of the criticisms
and operational issues that the company is presently facing.
4 What else ought the company to commit itself to, and under what circumstances, to ensure
its continuing operational viability, security and profitability?

Author: Richard Pettinger, University College, London