Widespread exploitation of Fukushima workers is uncovered, Reuters!

Widespread exploitation of Fukushima workers is uncovered
Source: Reuters - Fri, 25 Oct 2013 08:29 AM
Author: Reuters

"I was told I could just work in normal clothes. But I arrived and was put into a full protective suit. I was very confused."

"Then once you've signed all the papers, you find out that actually you're going into a highly radioactive area."

"Workers on the front lines are tricked into going there."

"After a few days, they're thrown away. Then the companies lie and recruit.

"You're brainwashed, bit by bit."

www.trust.org...

Ummm... Okay.. I understand the issue of sending these guys into a situation most know will kill them eventually. How did we get from the "Fukushima 50" to the 'but they didn't TELL me Fukushima was dangerous!'?????

Do these workers honestly expect anyone on this planet to believe they actually got suckered into working at the best known industrial accident site in the history of man, and were unaware of the dangers?? They were..surprised? Exploited? Snookered?

Umm.. Okay, if my job assignment says Fukushima? I'm thinking it's a danger pay kinda job ..and I live half a planet away.

I just have no sympathy whatsoever for that level of total, pure and complete ignorance. That level is willful and self indulging. It's not like this is some obscure accident. People from Antarctic science stations to Eskimos in igloos know what Fukushima is and most can probably find it on a map better than the top major nations of the world.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


It all depends how the media is betraying the disaster over there, they could be down playing it on the media and these workers are probably so poor they want to put food on their family's tables, but are tricked by news and media outlets.

Wrabbit2000
Ummm... Okay.. I understand the issue of sending these guys into a situation most know will kill them eventually. How did we get from the "Fukushima 50" to the 'but they didn't TELL me Fukushima was dangerous!'?????

Do these workers honestly expect anyone on this planet to believe they actually got suckered into working at the best known industrial accident site in the history of man, and were unaware of the dangers?? They were..surprised? Exploited? Snookered?

Umm.. Okay, if my job assignment says Fukushima? I'm thinking it's a danger pay kinda job ..and I live half a planet away.

I just have no sympathy whatsoever for that level of total, pure and complete ignorance. That level is willful and self indulging. It's not like this is some obscure accident. People from Antarctic science stations to Eskimos in igloos know what Fukushima is and most can probably find it on a map better than the top major nations of the world.

um, do you talk to real people?

i have yet to come across anyone i've spoken to in real life and not just on an internet forum that doesn't believe fukisima was "FIXED" ages ago. they are all morons because they just believe the bull# they are fed. oh and its not in the news anymore so therefore it can't be bad right?

so no it doesn't surprise me, that yes people are THIS stupid and really do believe they were tricked.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I believe them? Why is it hard to believe that they might think they are working in a safer low radiation area and then are duped into working a hot zone?

You shouldn't knock them if yiu are ignorant of the situation. The Yakuza is involved as well sensing signing up tepco workers that owe debts or are low level yakuza.

yakuza and nuke power

That artixle makes the yakuza seen a little noble but you would be naive to think they surrendered thwir lives or that higher ups went. There were Yakuza "members" in the fukushima 50.

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow


I'm sorry.. I'm not going to mentally wargame this into absurd levels of finding ways to invent innocence to ignorance when there simply isn't any, IMO.

If they are pulling workers from the back villages of the Philippines or Sumatra or Malaysia? I can POSSIBLY see a reason and cause for ignorance. First world information technology hasn't reached every corner of the planet, by far. However, this isn't Sumatra or a Malaysian jungle village. This is modern Japan and we're suggesting workers have a place to blame others for their ignorance of what has literally redefined the future of their nation and culture?

This would be like hiring a work crew to go to New York and work Ground Zero a month after the hits in 2001. Oh, sure, they could believe it was safe to breathe the smoke and dust .if they WANTED to believe that and were looking for ways to justify pulling the pay people got down there ....but deep down, it would take true idiocy in the classic definition for an American to have NOT KNOWN that wasn't healthy.

Likewise...Japanese with Fuku, in my opinion. Ignorance is willful for something that changes an entire nation like that did. 'You pay your money, you take your chances..' as the saying goes. It doesn't take a News Hound to know...after crossing miles of radioactive exclusion zone just to GET there ...that isn't a happy and healthy workplace.

I think we have for most part a certain perspective of a western society and that translates to some people's ignorance stance here.

because despite our common shared civil liberties we are not isolated nor suffering the direct effects of ground zero like they are or work or living in need of work it's there homeland.

These are poor broken people in some pockets of this region who know true isolation now and also it has taken the Japanese alone to deal with what is regardless a world effecting issue.

Regardless of there reasons for working there I personally appreciate there sacrifice and I think it just goes to show how much the nuclear accident is a global failure, and one which will repeat and repeat because history repeats itself always and so many people do so little to help each other now days.

Humanity is just a world away literally.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


just because YOU think a certain way doesn't mean that anyone that thinks or behaves differently is wrong. these people have been lied to. the government just got the olympics to come...... fooling quite an intelligent group of people into giving them the bid. most of japan thinks there is nothing to worry about AT ALL. there are many people who have no understanding of radiation at all and if you say "just don't touch x,y, z and you'll be completely FINE" they are going to believe it. the only way to even get a single worker to set foot in there is to lie to them. no person that was informed would do a job knowing it WILL give them cancer.

There are several things to keep in mind.

1. The truth about fukashima is VERY hard to discern. Up until recently the American MSM contended this was a minor event. Up until VERY recently TEPCO said they had everything under control. So an average, poorly educated person who needs work is unlikely to know what a milisvert is or how much exposure will cause death.

2. TEPCO operates in private, no oversight. So for an average person to get access to information concerning the nature of the tanks, the leaks, the radiation, the type of radiation, the needed equipment to protect is IMPOSSIBLE.

3. TEPCO is going to need a steady stream of workers for the next 40 years!

4. TEPCO is nearly bankrupt, and it works to keep costs down in all areas of the company. It works to keep costs down in the process of the clean up. Think about that, they have to be cheap in the clean up process. This means they pay lousy wages, lie to workers, provide poor equipment etc. Who are the kind of people that seek out jobs that pay lousy wages?

5. TEPCO is going to need a steady stream of workers for the next 40 years!

6. TEPCO will not need a steady stream of workers if SFP blows, as the site will be abandoned and everything will be fine for the workers that are not needed.

reply to post by pasiphae

the only way to even get a single worker to set foot in there is to lie to them. no person that was informed would do a job knowing it WILL give them cancer.

I think you underestimate the Japanese people in that. The Fukushima 50 came to be named that for 50 men who did stay, knowing that staying would likely mean their deaths. They remained willingly and they were the guys who knew the plant best and so, best knew the risks and real numbers in the first weeks.

I simply don't take Japan as overflowing with illiterate fools, ripe for the picking to be sent to their deaths in total ignorance. Japan is one of the most educated and literate nations in the world, not to mention, most high tech in daily life and national standards.

Perhaps, somewhere, in some corners...there are some who make the 1% of uneducated people. It literally IS 1% though, as Japan tops out what I've seen on the factbook for a national literacy rate, as indication of overall intelligence.

We all have our opinions and every right to them. That's simply mine, and therein lay the basis for it.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I would like to empathize with the workers but once again I have to agree with Wrabbit. It is obvious where you are working. I would not take that job. Everyone knows its dangerous and that they will be irradiated. IMHO the rest of the world needs to step up to the plate though and pitch in. This concerns everyone. Every government should be thinking about its own citizens and the radiation being spewed from that place. Not to mention there should be a world wide ban on any food coming out of Japan.