Subcontracted Death
Subcontracted Death
April 3, 2011
I hesitated to publish this information, relayed by a reader in the form of a translation of an article from the Spanish daily "El Correo." But it has now been confirmed, plunging us into the depths of horror. Yet, why should we be surprised? Isn't this consistent with the way our world currently functions? In Japan, men sacrifice themselves to try to contain a disaster caused by corporate incompetence, recklessness, and greed, while our dwarf-president reaffirmed, twenty days after the catastrophe, before Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, that nuclear energy remains the only solution. All that's needed is to establish international safety standards.
Well, of course...
Yet solutions do exist. For example, solar energy combined with high power output, deployed offshore. This theme is explored in an article set to appear in the May issue of the Nexus magazine.
Here is what emerges from these mind-boggling working conditions.
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/les-bagnards-du-nucleaire_974084.html
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/environnement/japon-les-clochards-du-nucleaire_978891.html
The rem
Acronym for "Röntgen Equivalent Man," the rem is an outdated unit of measurement for radiation dose absorbed by a living organism. It has since been replaced by the sievert.
(1 rem equals 0.01 sievert)
In France, where subcontracting in the nuclear sector is rapidly expanding, employees at EDF use a less poetic but more explicit term to describe these workers: "rem meat." Following the Toyota model, Japanese companies have long relied on subcontracting, particularly in construction. Recruitment intermediaries for daily laborers are often yakuza.
On the Japanese ANPE website "Hello Work," numerous job postings of this kind can be easily found, such as one offering work at the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini power plants for three months, from February 3 to April 30, 2011.
The job description is brief: inspection, electrical, and welding tasks. "No diploma, qualifications, or experience required," it states. Hiring is done under the name of a small subcontracting company specializing in nuclear power plant maintenance. The pay: 10,000 yen per day, or 83 euros.
A 2003 report by El Mundo revealed that the Fukushima Daiichi plant even recruited homeless people from parks in Tokyo. Since the recession began in the early 1990s, parks in major cities have turned into makeshift camps, with numerous shelters made of blue tarps.
It is here that subcontracting firms—often controlled by yakuza—send recruiters in search of daily laborers. In the case of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, these poor workers were told they were being hired as "cleaners." Then, transported 200 km from Tokyo, they realized at the last moment that they were to work deep inside a nuclear reactor.
In France
The "Convicts of Nuclear Power"
Since then, warning signs have been posted in Tokyo parks: "Don't accept this job—it will kill you!" But over the past thirty years, thousands of poor workers, immigrant laborers, and homeless people have taken turns working in these plants, risking their lives. Some attempt to have their radiation-related illnesses recognized as occupational diseases. The Shimahashi family was the first to win a lawsuit for a work-related illness: their son, Nobuki, died at age 29 from leukemia after eight years working at the Hamaoka nuclear plant.
This case might be just the tip of the iceberg: according to a report by Dr. Fujita, professor of physics at Keiô University, between 700 and 1,000 "nuclear gypsies" have already died, and thousands more have developed cancer. Under these conditions, the so-called "voluntary" cleanup workers at Fukushima, whose courage is so often highlighted, may be heroes unwillingly caught in the nuclear disaster.
The rem
Acronym for "Röntgen Equivalent Man," the rem is an outdated unit of measurement for radiation dose absorbed by a living organism. It has since been replaced by the sievert.
(1 rem equals 0.01 sievert)