From: Yona Maro

Before the earthquake and nuclear reactor meltdown in March 2011, about 30% of the country’s electricity needs were provided by Japan’s 54 main nuclear reactors, and this was expected to increase to at least 40% by 2017. Much of this information was reported after Japan’s disastrous earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, which not only created hundreds of thousands of refugees but also damaged nuclear reactors, especially Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

At Fukushima Daiichi, workers are still required to clean the garbages of the disaster so as to reduce the harm to the rest of the country and the world. It is a Faustian bargain, yet the bargain is made by the corporation, while workers work in danger out of compulsion of their economic necessity. Those lacking work are ‘willing’ to face the deadly work environment of nuclear rubble to earn for their families.

While working in a nuclear power plant seems to be a unique job, not comparable to other industries, in fact there is a simple common denominator with all those who do dirty, dangerous and demeaning jobs all around the world – insecurity or plain lack of work, and thus inability to subsist without wage work, forces workers to accept compromises to their health and safety as a precondition of their work. It is in fact a false ‘choice’ if the workers are beholden by the industry to keep their jobs.

http://www.amrc.org.hk/node/1230

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Karibu Jukwaa la www.mwanabidii.com
Pata nafasi mpya za Kazi www.kazibongo.blogspot.com