What it’s really like to be a cleanup worker at Fukushima

Those on the lower rungs, say labour advocates, are particularly
vulnerable. They often have no corporate health, pension or redundancy
benefits. ….

the hardest work was done by the low-level labourers. They had so much rubble to clear, he says, that they often keeled over in the heat under the weight of their protective gear.
Taken out in ambulances, they would usually be back the following day.

Cleaning up Japan’s nuclear mess, The twilight zone, Its owner fears not just radiation leaking out of the Fukushima plant, but also bad news, The Economist Nov 5th 2011 | IWAKI | IT IS another world beyond the roadblocks stopping unauthorised traffic from entering the 20km (12.5-mile) exclusion zone around the
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. ….

The air of secrecy is compounded when you try to approach workers involved in the nightmarish task of stabilising the nuclear plant. Many are not salaried Tepco staff but low-paid contract workers lodging in Iwaki, just south of the exclusion zone.

It is easy to spot them, in their nylon tracksuits. They seem to have
been recruited from the poorest corners of society. One man calls home
from a telephone box because he cannot afford a mobile phone. Another
has a single front tooth. Both are reluctant to talk to journalists,
because a condition of their employment is silence. But they do share
their concerns about safety. One, who earns ¥15,000 ($190) a day
clearing radioactive rubble at the plant, says he was given just
half-an-hour of safety training. Almost everything he has learned
about radiation risks, he says, came from the television.

A strict hierarchy exists among the workers at Fukushima. Tepco’s own
salaried staff are in a minority. The firm employs a top tier of
subcontractors, from the builders of reactors such as Toshiba and
Hitachi. They, in turn, subcontract work to builders and engineers,
who subcontract further, down to small gangs of labourers recruited by
a single boss. Some lower-ranking companies may have ties to the
yakuza, Japan’s mafia, and among the lowest-paid recruits are members
of the burakumin minority, who have long been discriminated against.

Those on the lower rungs, say labour advocates, are particularly
vulnerable. They often have no corporate health, pension or redundancy
benefits. Hiroyuki Watanabe, an Iwaki councillor from the Japan
Communist Party who is campaigning to protect Dai-ichi workers, has a
document showing one worker’s accumulated radiation exposure. In two
months it had reached almost 33 millisieverts, or a third the level
normally permissible for those working on a nuclear accident in a
year. Mr Watanabe reports many safety breaches.

Workers wading through contaminated water complain that their boots have holes in them. Some are not instructed in when to change the filters on their safety masks.

Mr Watanabe believes Tepco is cutting corners because cash is tight.
Even such basic tools as wrenches are in short supply, he claims.
Tepco is shielded by a lack of media scrutiny. The councillor shows a
Tepco gagging order that one local boss had to sign. Article four bans
all discussion of the work with outsiders. All requests for media
interviews must be rejected.

Those higher up the rungs appear to be treated better—though they,
too, are sworn to secrecy…..
One engineer who has played a front-line role in helping cool the
meltdown of Fukushima’s three reactors spoke unwittingly to The
Economist.

……….he said, the hardest work was done by the low-level
labourers. They had so much rubble to clear, he says, that they often
keeled over in the heat under the weight of their protective gear.
Taken out in ambulances, they would usually be back the following day.
The engineer’s most stressful months, he said, were in June and July,
once enough rubble was cleared to let him work on the systems.
Seven-hour shifts usually involve an hour on and an hour off. Before
he starts he must put on two sets of protective clothing, four pairs
of gloves and a helmet with breathing apparatus, all of which is taped
up so that not a particle of skin is exposed. At the end of every
hour, he has to take off the protective layers and replace them with
new ones before starting again. (Tepco says, with attention to
finickety detail, that it has accumulated a mountain of 480,000 such
suits in need of disposal.) During the busiest months, the hour-on,
hour-off rule was foregone, the engineer said. “Though everyone is
really trying their best, most of the Tepco guys in head office are
clueless about what’s going on. No one has any idea of the conditions
we’ve had to work under.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21536625