Control of the damaged and leaking nuclear reactors at Fukushima lies in the hands of workers who are dangerously overworked, underfed, overstressed and increasingly unhealthy. At the beginning of the 21st Century, a Japanese corporation is treating nuclear power plant workers like Triangle shirtwaist girls at the beginning of the 20th, with similar dooms at risk. According to Japan Times, TEPCO's mistreated employees, who carry responsibility for preventing further fuel meltdowns and explosions while searching desperately for a solution to the ongoing release of radioactivity into the environment, live and work without adequate provision for rest, nutrition, privacy, health, family, stress and other basic human needs.
Don't take my word for it. Follow the link and see the report of the results of medical examinations of 90 TEPCO plant workers at Fukushima conducted by a medical school professor who has also has practiced since 1991, part time, as an industrial physician for TEPCO at its nuclear plants at Fukushima.
Here are the remarks I found most alarming.
Many of the workers have been exposed to multiple stresses
Many are complaining of difficulty sleeping and the risks of depression and death from overwork will rise further if this goes on
Workers other than senior officials work in shifts of four days on and two days off, but cannot even take a bath during the four workdays despite sweating heavily in impervious radiation-protective gear, Tanigawa said.
"Being unable to feel refreshed, they are not only vulnerable to various diseases and skin disorders but also may commit errors in their work," Tanigawa warned.
"Employees engaged in the dangerous work have human rights and wives and children just like others. We should not treat their lives without due respect," he said.
Folks, this is TEPCO's own guy talking about a big segment of TEPCO's Fukushima workforce. The report also remarks that supply of food, but not its quality or variety, have improved and that sleeping conditions are communal and separate workers from their families.
I see this happening in a supposedly high tech, First World nation and I have to say WTF?
The remarkable thing, of course, is that these workers have managed to do as well as they have. Cores seem to be covered and temperatures are high but not out of control. Plans are afoot to reclaim leaking water for the coolant cycle. I hope everything goes perfectly for them and for TEPCO and that it turns our their plans are perfect, too.
I hope there are no more explosions and no more core melting and that the ultimate entombment of the plant and reclamation of the countryside will restore habitability to the region without bankrupting the Japanese people. I truly hope all of these things.
But, given the conditions, what are the odds?
And, given the odds, I have to ask the UN and the USDOE and POTUS why the heck it is that TEPCO should continue, apparently, to have such a free hand to so improvidently mistreat its workforce, given the increased risk of mistakes, errors and accidents by personnel working under such terribly adverse conditions? Even casting aside all considerations of humanity, this is not a smart way to treat a workforce. Between shifts, these folks should be enjoying every respite, delicacy, nutrient and entertainment their country and culture can provide them. A lot rides on these people holding up and continuing to function at a very high operational level. Of course, it's hard to get them the support they may need, given that TEPCO forces them to spend their off duty hours at a site 10 km from the reactors, right in the middle of the 20 km mandatory evacuation zone. Nice. I'm guessing this distance is forced upon them by the need for rapid response to an emergent crisis. I don't find that guess reassuring.
I honor and admire these workers and their accomplishments under stunningly adverse conditions. I deplore the treatment their employer subjects them to and the deprivations forced upon them by TEPCO. I fear that the human factor could be the undoing of their accomplishments so far and result in more contamination to come.