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RE: Usually not worth it
True, a policy in some binder that everyone forgets about is useless. What I heard happened was that someone in the emergency command center heard what they wanted to hear or got carried away with a rumor and leaked it out. It could've been a rescue worker. I'm not sure, and the smoke (literally and metaphorically speaking) hasn't cleared yet to narrow it down where the rumor originated.
The company should care though because they nearly had a full fledged riot on their hands. The families and other employees, not to mention investors, lost a lot of confidence in the company as a result. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lawsuit floats up like a turd from this.
I don't think banning employee cell phones would work at all, but having some regular training for the employees who will act as the rescue team if something like this happens again, which it will in coal mining.
I guess I was hoping this item would spark some freedom of speech debate and we could collaboratively come up with some solutions for this and other industries. You bring up a lot of good points, like any time spent on training costs the company money, which I hadn't considered seriously.
Here's another point to consider. Contrast how this case was handled vs. the first chemical spill in China. Can't find the exact URL right now, but the Chinese government wasn't too happy, nor were the people in that city because the government never warned the city until LONG after private citizens with cell phones spread the word. Then the government came out and said "Oh, by the way..." after the word had leaked out. Interestingly, not long after that China began requiring registration with the government to own a cell phone. Clearly that won't float here.
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Usually not worth it
I don't think most companies will ever try to stop this sort of thing because it's simply not worth the effort. Consider this mining company. How often do you think they have an event anywhere close to this level of publicity? They probably never thought anything this big would happen. But let's say they did. What could they have to do to prepare?
Cell phones are a must these days. Perhaps they could get phones that can only call internally to the company, but what about their business needs on non-emergency days? Chances are that they'll need outside lines. The only other viable option would be to have some sort of policy that outlines "communications blackouts" in which no information should be transmitted outside of the company, but then how do you practice this and make people aware? If you've worked in the company for 5 years with no emergencies, chances are that you have never even heard of this policy, or it's been so long since you heard about it that it no longer has any meaning. I suppose you could add training to your schedule, but training for something unlikely to happen is money lost. Unlike the government or military, companies have to produce something and sell it to stay afloat. They can't just shut down "just in case."
So, in summary, I think that unless you could issue some sort of company phone to all employees, ban private cell phones, and have a control feature to shut down the numbers that the company phones could dial, you probably don't have many good options.
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