Untrained labourers working in Japan’s nuclear industry
For decades, Japan’s nuclear power industry has claimed to be among the safest in the world, and presented itself as an icon of the technological prowess of Japanese capitalism. The radiation crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has exposed not only inadequate safety procedures, but the industry’s exploitation of untrained and low-paid casual labourers.
Nuclear plants in Japan hire thousands of temporary and contract workers to undertake the most dangerous and physically demanding duties. In order to avoid exceeding official radiation levels, these labourers must rotate frequently as they perform tasks such as cleaning off contaminated water from reactor drywells and spent fuel pools with mops and rags, or filling drums with contaminated waste.
Citing statistics from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the official government regulator, the New York Times reported on April 9 that contract workers made up 88 percent of the 83,000 workers at Japan’s 18 commercial nuclear power plants. At the Fukushima plant, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), 89 percent of the 10,303 workers were contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, whose wages and conditions were generally far worse than those of TEPCO’s regular employees.
Takeshi Kawakami, a 64-year-old former worker who worked at the No.1 reactor at Fukushima in the 1980s, told the newspaper that when exposed to radiation, he usually did not last 20 minutes. “It was unbearable, and you had your mask on, and it was so tight,” he said. “I started feeling dizzy. I could not even see what I was doing. I thought I would drown in my own sweat.” (This is the kind of bullshit corporate-malfeasance-to-homicidal-negligence that unions prevent. There doesn't seem to be too much of a Government Regulatory presence here, either. Understand now, these are not hypotheticals. They happened, and happened as a matter of course. This is how unregulated corporate entities behave toward individual workers, and without any unions to stand in the way, this is how they will continue to behave. As a matter of course..)
OMG JAPAN IS SINKING!! ..APRIL 10 2011 PEOPLE ARE WAY TOO RELAXED ( ASLEEP) You Tube via Rense.
Japan Mulls to Move Capital over Disaster Worries Curious. From Sofia News Agency(Bulgaria) via Rense. Excerpts:
As powerful earthquakes continue to jolt Japan and radiation levels near Tokyo are rising, the Asian country's authorities are considering moving the capital to another city.
The most probable location for a new capital are Osaka and Nagoya, according to ITAR-TASS. Both cities are located near international airports.
Toyota to halve Japan domestic production in May
Japan's Toyota Motor Co. said Friday it would operate all its domestic plants at half normal volume from May 10 to June 3, citing problems with parts supply following the quake and tsunami disaster.
..
A component supply crisis has strangled auto production in Japan and enforced a slowdown overseas in the wake of the March 11 disasters, and analysts say it will last several months amid continued power outages.
Tepco forced to compensate Fukushima evacuees Poor TEPCO, having to pay out so much hard earned cash to the thousands(Ultimately, millions) of people whose lives they've ruined. Sympathy, sympathy, sympathy.. Excerpts:
The Japanese government has ordered Tokyo Electric Power to pay compensation to 50,000 families forced to evacuate areas near the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the first significant pay-out in what is expected to be a costly financial relief programme.
Tepco, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, must pay each family Y1m ($12,000), or Y750,000 in the case of single-person households, putting the total cost of the pay-out at upwards of Y50bn. An executive said the company aimed to make the first payments in early May, after the first applications are accepted on Apr 28\
Siemens reconsiders nuclear ambitions Interesting in light of the Stuxnet conspiracy.
Store blood cells from Fukushima workers - Lancet letter
A group of Japanese doctors on Friday urged workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant to have their blood stemcells stored as a safeguard should they be exposed to life-threatening levels of radiation.
The technique entails storing so-called autologous peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs), which are immature cells that differentiate into blood cells.
PBSC transplants are often used in cancer treatment to boost depleted blood cell counts among patients who have had radiotherapy to destroy a tumour.
In a letter to the British medical weekly The Lancet, cancer specialists at four Japanese hospitals argued that it made sense to store blood from the hundreds of workers battling to save the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from catastrophe.
For decades, Japan’s nuclear power industry has claimed to be among the safest in the world, and presented itself as an icon of the technological prowess of Japanese capitalism. The radiation crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami has exposed not only inadequate safety procedures, but the industry’s exploitation of untrained and low-paid casual labourers.
Nuclear plants in Japan hire thousands of temporary and contract workers to undertake the most dangerous and physically demanding duties. In order to avoid exceeding official radiation levels, these labourers must rotate frequently as they perform tasks such as cleaning off contaminated water from reactor drywells and spent fuel pools with mops and rags, or filling drums with contaminated waste.
Citing statistics from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the official government regulator, the New York Times reported on April 9 that contract workers made up 88 percent of the 83,000 workers at Japan’s 18 commercial nuclear power plants. At the Fukushima plant, owned by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), 89 percent of the 10,303 workers were contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, whose wages and conditions were generally far worse than those of TEPCO’s regular employees.
Takeshi Kawakami, a 64-year-old former worker who worked at the No.1 reactor at Fukushima in the 1980s, told the newspaper that when exposed to radiation, he usually did not last 20 minutes. “It was unbearable, and you had your mask on, and it was so tight,” he said. “I started feeling dizzy. I could not even see what I was doing. I thought I would drown in my own sweat.” (This is the kind of bullshit corporate-malfeasance-to-homicidal-negligence that unions prevent. There doesn't seem to be too much of a Government Regulatory presence here, either. Understand now, these are not hypotheticals. They happened, and happened as a matter of course. This is how unregulated corporate entities behave toward individual workers, and without any unions to stand in the way, this is how they will continue to behave. As a matter of course..)
OMG JAPAN IS SINKING!! ..APRIL 10 2011 PEOPLE ARE WAY TOO RELAXED ( ASLEEP) You Tube via Rense.
Japan Mulls to Move Capital over Disaster Worries Curious. From Sofia News Agency(Bulgaria) via Rense. Excerpts:
As powerful earthquakes continue to jolt Japan and radiation levels near Tokyo are rising, the Asian country's authorities are considering moving the capital to another city.
The most probable location for a new capital are Osaka and Nagoya, according to ITAR-TASS. Both cities are located near international airports.
Toyota to halve Japan domestic production in May
Japan's Toyota Motor Co. said Friday it would operate all its domestic plants at half normal volume from May 10 to June 3, citing problems with parts supply following the quake and tsunami disaster.
..
A component supply crisis has strangled auto production in Japan and enforced a slowdown overseas in the wake of the March 11 disasters, and analysts say it will last several months amid continued power outages.
Tepco forced to compensate Fukushima evacuees Poor TEPCO, having to pay out so much hard earned cash to the thousands(Ultimately, millions) of people whose lives they've ruined. Sympathy, sympathy, sympathy.. Excerpts:
The Japanese government has ordered Tokyo Electric Power to pay compensation to 50,000 families forced to evacuate areas near the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the first significant pay-out in what is expected to be a costly financial relief programme.
Tepco, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, must pay each family Y1m ($12,000), or Y750,000 in the case of single-person households, putting the total cost of the pay-out at upwards of Y50bn. An executive said the company aimed to make the first payments in early May, after the first applications are accepted on Apr 28\
Siemens reconsiders nuclear ambitions Interesting in light of the Stuxnet conspiracy.
Store blood cells from Fukushima workers - Lancet letter
A group of Japanese doctors on Friday urged workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant to have their blood stemcells stored as a safeguard should they be exposed to life-threatening levels of radiation.
The technique entails storing so-called autologous peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs), which are immature cells that differentiate into blood cells.
PBSC transplants are often used in cancer treatment to boost depleted blood cell counts among patients who have had radiotherapy to destroy a tumour.
In a letter to the British medical weekly The Lancet, cancer specialists at four Japanese hospitals argued that it made sense to store blood from the hundreds of workers battling to save the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from catastrophe.
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