Unskilled workers and a nuclear disaster

 

     In the wake of the disaster unfolding at Japans Fukushima Daiichi plant, many secrets of the way business was conducted at the embattled plant have surfaced. Namely, the use of unskilled workers to carry out the tasks that the plant's operators, Tokyo Electric, didn't want to subject their trained and highly skilled workers to. In their place, unskilled workers, or what are commonly referred to as day layborers, were employed for high daily wages in return for being exposed to harsh working conditions and dangerous levels of radiation.

     “This is the hidden world of nuclear power,” said Yuko Fujita, a former physics professor at Keio University in Tokyo and a longtime campaigner for improved labor conditions in the nuclear industry. “Wherever there are hazardous conditions, these laborers are told to go. It is dangerous for them, and it is dangerous for nuclear safety.”

     The use of these unskilled laborers to carry out more dangerous and undesirable jobs displays the two tiered labor force not only in Japan, but many countries outside the US. The skilled and elite level workers are not subjected to the high risk jobs that the lower, working class people must take on to provide for their families. Combining unskilled labor in a setting that requires the utmost care and attention to detail has proven to very dangerous in the case of their nuclear facilities.

     Workers are encouraged to keep injuries unreported because of the fear of losing their jobs. However, since the coverage of the unfolding drama at the battered power plant, many of the workers being reported to have been injured in news reports have been the untrained day laborers. Since the beginning of their nuclear program in the 1970's, Japan has paid out benefits to 50 such workers due to the development of cancers such as leukemia that are linked to exposure to high levels of radiation. However, many cases are not granted settlements because it's hard to prove the link between their time spent at the plants and the disease.

    
Mr. Ishizawa, the only one who allowed his name to be used, said, “I might go back to a nuclear plant one day, but I’d have to be starving.” In addition to his jobs at Daiichi, he has worked at thermal power plants and on highway construction sites in the region. For now, he said, he will stay away from the nuclear industry.

      With safety obviously being a major concern with the lack of transparency by the Japanese government in the actual levels of radiation surrounding the plant, some workers find it hard to resist the money. With the company being battered economically by the disaster that struck in March, some see exposure to radiation for upward of $1,000 a day as a necessary evil.

     Before the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that followed, the Fukushima plant was already littered with safety issues. Whether it's a cultural problem that leads to the skilled workers not feeling obligated to carry out dangerous tasks or the Tokyo Electric Group exploiting local impoverished people to do their dirty work, this practice needs to stop. The breakdown of a nuclear power plant and the pollution that it causes affects people globally and stricter enforcement is needed to ensure the safety of all people that call this planet home. If that means investing money and training the people that are working on the facilities, then Japan and it's energy companies need to step up and ensure that from here on out their nuclear facilities run not only efficiently, but ethically as well.