Fukushima

By Doro Chiba - Translated into English by Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, September 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Doro-Chiba adopted unanimously a new policy of struggle on the 44th Annual Convention today held in the Union Hall. We resolutely confront with the second round offensive of the Division and Privatization by the JR Companies and also advance the fight against the rejection of a final appeal for the Japan Railways' employment discrimination at the time of the Division and Privatization of JNR in 1987.

Doro-Chiba made a final appeal in regard to the above case to the Supreme Court in 2013, but on June 30 of this year, the Court denied the appeal. This reactionary decision of the Supreme Court was an attempt to peremptorily put a period to the National Railway Struggle. Under the explosive situation of railroading the war legislation, the state power was finally forced to make a decision of dismantling militant labor movement at large. However, our consistent struggle has driven the Supreme Court into the corner. The Court was obliged to admit that the JR and the state power itself had committed unfair labor practices in its policy making of discriminating re-employment and dismissal at the time of the Division and Privatization. At last the bedrock of the assault of Division and Privatization of National Railway was shaken! This is a significant victory.

Our thirty year-long struggle has never let the Division and Privatization of JNR slide by as a past issue and prevented the completion of Rengo (system-friendly Japanese Trade Union Confederation) which was established to destroy militant labor movements in 1989.

Our persistent struggle against the Division and Privatization of JNR has defended labor movements and the rights of workers in the nick of time. Now we launch a fresh struggle to have the unfair dismissal withdrawn and laid-off workers reinstated.

We are now drawing up a strike plan to protest against the planned outsourcing toward October 1, the day our members were forced to go on loan to the subcontractor three years ago. We claim; “Cancel immediately our outsourcing contract and reinstate all jobs to JR!” The privatizing and outsourcing issues have not at all been settled yet. An all-out struggle starts from now on.

We denounce Abe administration with fierce anger for railroading the war legislation. However, this historic abominable onslaught has released millions of workers’ anger and let them swing into action, On August 30, more than 120,000 people occupied and liberated the closed area in front of the Diet building, breaking through the police’s cordon. The corrupt knots of Japan Communist Party (JCP) and Rengo became terrified and tried to calm the situation within the framework of co-opted opposition forces. But the protest action grew more and more militant every day and sparked a heavy clash with police power for a week. The history began to change then.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, January 17, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• The Robots Are Coming! Let's Make Them Work for the Workers - By Thomas Matt, Truthout, January 15, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• BP, ConocoPhillips to cut 530 jobs in the North Sea - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 15, 2015
• Schlumberger to cut 9,000 employees, including in Houston - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, January 15, 2015; [related]: Schlumberger axes 9,000 workers - By Michael Allan McCrae, Mining.Com, January 16, 2015
• Wage growth for oil workers slowed in 2014, data firm says - By Joshua Cain, FuelFix, January 15, 2015

Green Jobs and Just Transition:

• By focusing on collaboration, not competition, teachers can save civilization - By Lizanne Foster, Rabble.ca, January 18, 2015
• Offshore Wind in the Atlantic Would Provide Twice the Number of Jobs, Energy as Offshore Drilling - By Jaime McClain, Oceana, January 15, 2015
• Solar Jobs Boom: US Industry Adds 31,000 Workers as Installations Surge - By Pete Danko, Breaking Energy, January 15, 2015
• There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs - By Tim McDonnell, Grist, January 15, 2015

Other News of Interest:

• Bhopal Cloud Hovers Over Industrial Safety in India - By Neeta Lal, Truthout, January 20, 2015
• Five Die After Crash In South Texas Oil Field - by Katie Valentin, Think Progress, January 16, 2015
• Forced labor on Thai fishing vessels - By Farah Obaidullah, Greenpeace Blogs, January 16, 2015
• Global union alerts Bougainville about Rio Tinto - Adam Lee interviewed by Radio New Zealand, Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, January 20, 2015
• Oil-by-Rail Reality: Watch What Industry Does, Not What They Say - By Justin Mikulka, DeSmog Blog, January 15, 2015
• Peruvian Youth To Protest Against New Labor Law - Telesur, December 22, 2014
• RCMP union: Solidarity forever? - By John Baglow, Rabble.ca, January 17, 2015
• Report urges injury, death coverage for farm workers - By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal, January 15, 2015
• Soma, Ermenek, Yirca: Can Anti-Coal Activists Defend Coal Miners and Olive Farmers? - By Ethemcan Turhan, Jadaliyya, January 17, 2015
• Textile Workers’ Strike Stirs Discontent In Sisi’s Egypt - By Hossam el-Hamalawy, al-Araby, January 16, 2015
• Women Garment Workers Organize Against Inhumane Conditions in India - By Pushpa Achanta, Waging Nonviolence, January 12, 2015
• Worker dies at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant - By Justin McCurry, The Guardian, January 20, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Béla Galgóczi - European Trade Union Institute, 2015

Our planetary limits demand a radical transition from the energy-intensive economic model based on the extraction of finite resources, which has been dominant since the first industrial revolution, to a model that is both sustainable and equitable.

Unfortunately however, energy transformation in Europe has, after a promising start, fallen hostage to austerity and to the main philosophy underpinning the crisis management policies in which overall competitiveness is reduced to the much narrower concept of cost-competitiveness. Regulatory uncertainty, design failures built into incentive systems, and unjust distribution of the costs, have also contributed to the reversal of progress in energy transformation currently observable across Europe.

In this book three country case studies highlight the different facets of these conflicts, while additional light is thrown on the situation by an account of the lack of progress in achieving energy efficiency.

By way of conclusion, a mapping of the main conflicts and obstacles to progress will be of help in formulating policy recommendations. Ambitious climate and energy policy targets should be regarded not as a burden on the economy but rather as investment targets able to pave the way to higher employment and sustainable growth. It is high time for this perception to be recognised and implemented in the context of Europe’s new Investment Plan, thereby enabling clean energy investment to come to form its central pillar. A shift in this direction will require an overhaul of the regulatory and incentive systems to ensure that the need for just burden-sharing is adequately taken into account.

Read the report (Link).

By Mari Saito and Antoni Slodkowski - HR Reporter, October 8, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

HIRONO (Reuters) — Almost a year after Japan pledged to double hazard pay at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, workers are still in the dark about how much extra they are getting paid, if anything, for cleaning up the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

Under pressure to improve working conditions at Fukushima after a series of radioactive water leaks last year, Tokyo Electric Power Co. president Naomi Hirose promised in November to double the hazard pay the utility allocates to its subcontractors for plant workers. That would have increased the amount each worker at the nuclear facility is supposed to earn to about $180 a day in hazard pay.

Only one of the more than three dozen workers interviewed by Reuters from July through September said he received the full hazard pay increase promised by Tepco. Some workers said they got nothing. In cases where payslips detailed a hazard allowance, the amounts ranged from $36 to about $90 a day — at best, half of what Hirose promised.

In some instances, workers said they were told they would be paid a hazard bonus based on how much radiation they absorb – an incentive to take additional risks at a dangerous work site.

One worker interviewed by Reuters said he was told he would get an additional $45 per day every time he was in so-called “hot zones” near Reactors No. 1 and No. 2. Another worker was told he would receive an hourly rate that worked out to $4,500 extra in hazard pay for being exposed to the radiation limit for Japan's nuclear workers over a five-year period. And a third worker said he was told the payout for that same exposure would be $36,000.

Assessing how much Fukushima workers are being paid is complicated by Tepco's insistence that pay is a private matter for its contractors. The power utility, which runs Fukushima and has been nationalised, sits at the top of a contracting pyramid that includes construction giants such as Taisei Corp. Tepco has declined to disclose details of any of its legal agreements with its subcontractors.

The top Tepco official at the plant conceded during a July press tour of the complex that he did not know how much of the increase in hazard pay was being disbursed. "When it comes to the pay rise, I don't have an exact understanding of how much money is getting directly to the workers," said Akira Ono, the Fukushima plant manager.

Tepco said in a statement to Reuters that it instructs subcontractors to ensure workers' pay is included in all contracts and it also asks companies working at the plant to submit documentation for all the subcontractors they use. The power utility said it had recently begun random checks of some of the smaller contractors to determine how much of the hazard pay is reaching workers. A worker who filled in a Tepco survey told Reuters in September that one of the questions was directly related to hazard pay.

Tepco still relies on some 800 mostly small contractors to provide workers for the cleanup after the tsunami that swamped the plant on March 11, 2011, sparked meltdowns at three reactors. Subcontractors provide almost all of the 6,000 workers now employed at the plant. Tokyo Electric employs only about 250 on its own payroll at the facility.

The workforce at Fukushima has almost doubled over the past year, mostly as part of an effort to protect groundwater from being contaminated and to store water that comes in contact with melted fuel in the reactor buildings.

Some of the workers who arrived recently at the plant have been building bunkers to store highly radioactive sludge, which is a byproduct of the process whereby contaminated water is treated. Others are installing equipment to freeze a ring of earth around four reactors at Fukushima to keep water from reaching the melted cores, an unprecedented effort directed by Kajima Corp and expected to cost nearly $300 million.

Kazumitsu Nawata, a professor in the University of Tokyo's department of technology who has researched conditions inside Fukushima, said that if workers do not receive pay that is commensurate with the risks they are taking, they will ultimately look elsewhere for employment. If more experienced workers leave for safer jobs in Tokyo where construction projects are accelerating ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games, it will also increase the likelihood of accidents at the plant, Nawata said in an interview.

"Until now, we have relied heavily on the goodwill of workers. But it's already been three years since the accident. This is no longer sustainable," he said.

By Kevin Krolicki - Reuters, September 3, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

IWAKI Japan (Reuters) - A group of Fukushima workers on Wednesday sued Tokyo Electric for unpaid wages in a potentially precedent-setting legal challenge to the utility and its reliance on contractors to shut down a nuclear plant destroyed by the industry's worst accident since Chernobyl.

The lawsuit follows a court ruling last week that the utility known as Tepco must pay compensation over the suicide of a woman who was forced from her home following the March 2011 tsunami and subsequent meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant north of Tokyo.

The spate of legal activity is the latest blow for Tepco, which has been effectively nationalized and expects to spend more than $48 billion in compensation alone for the disaster that forced the evacuation of some 160,000 residents.

The lawsuit, filed by two current and two former Fukushima workers who wore masks to court to conceal their identities, claims that Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc and its contractors failed to ensure workers are paid promised hazard allowances, a court filing showed.

"A year ago, Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe told the world that Fukushima was under control. But that's not the case," Tsuguo Hirota, the lawyer coordinating the lawsuit, said in an interview.

"Workers are not getting promised hazard pay and skilled workers are leaving. It's becoming a place for amateurs only, and that has to worry anyone who lives near the plant."

The workers say Tokyo Electric allowed subcontractors to skim funds allocated for wages to bolster their own profits on the decommissioning project at the expense of workers.

The lawsuit seeks the equivalent of almost $600,000 in unpaid wages from Tokyo Electric and related contractors. It marks the first time that the utility has been sued for the labor practices of the construction companies it employs.

The lawsuit also asks that the 6,000 workers at the nuclear clean-up project either be made effectively government employees, be put on the Tepco payroll directly or otherwise be fairly paid.

Hirota said he expects two additional workers will join the action immediately and that more could follow. Japanese law allows for additional plaintiffs with related claims to join an existing lawsuit.

Tokyo Electric said it had not yet received a copy of the compliant and would respond after seeing the details.

Read the entire article here.

By Yosuke Oda, Secretary General of National Conference for Worldwide Immediate Abolishment of All Nuclear Power Plants (NAZEN) - June 19, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Doro-Mito, a sister union of Doro-Chiba, have been repeatedly waging strikes against re-opening of rail truck near Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This struggle of rail workers in their own workplace against radiation-exposed work immensely shook Iwaki City where many of “Fukushima Liquidators” (nuclear plant workers to settle the catastrophe) live. We sincerely ask you, friends all over the world, to support this struggle and urge you to fight with us.

In concert with the Abe administration, which has been exerting enormous pressure on the evacuees to return to their contaminated hometown, the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) began test operation for the restoration of the disrupted railway line on Saturday May 10 on the rail truck between Hirono Station and Tatsuta Station, 16 kilometer (10 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi NPP. On Monday June 1, it extended “commercial” service to the Tatsuta Station. Now, trains are running inside the 20 Kilometer Radius—“the Evacuation Zone.”

For the safety of workers and passengers, Doro-Mito' maintenance and inspection workers waged a strike on May 10 and the drivers struck on May 30 and 31. On May 31, Doro-Mito and its supporters from around the country held a rally and marched in Iwaki City with several hundred participants.

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers - www.truth-out.org, October 24th, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The story of Fukushima should be on the front pages of every newspaper. Instead, it is rarely mentioned. The problems at Fukushima are unprecedented in human experience and involve a high risk of radiation events larger than any that the global community has ever experienced. It is going to take the best engineering minds in the world to solve these problems and to diminish their global impact.

When we researched the realities of Fukushima in preparation for this article, words like apocalyptic, cataclysmic and Earth-threatening came to mind. But, when we say such things, people react as if we were the little red hen screaming “the sky is falling” and the reports are ignored. So, we’re going to present what is known in this article and you can decide whether we are facing a potentially cataclysmic event.

Either way, it is clear that the problems at Fukushima demand that the world’s best nuclear engineers and other experts advise and assist in the efforts to solve them. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds.org and an international team of scientists created a 15-point plan to address the crises at Fukushima.

A subcommittee of the Green Shadow Cabinet (of which we are members), which includes long-time nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman, is circulating a sign-on letter and a petition calling on the United Nations and Japanese government to put in place the Gundersen et al plan and to provide 24-hour media access to information about the crises at Fukushima. There is also a call for international days of action on the weekend of November 9 and 10. The letter and petitions will be delivered to the UN on November 11 which is both Armistice Day and the 32^nd month anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

By John Reimann - June 11, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Like a psychopathic drunk driver careening down a busy street, capitalism on its last legs is creating untold disaster in its wake. One of the most serious is the ongoing example of Fukushima…. The plant’s owner, Tepco, is using some 400 metric tons per day of water to cool the damaged fuel rods in plant number four. However, a greater problem is that an equal amount is flowing from surrounding mountains underground under the plant and into the ocean.

Read the entire article in PDF form.

Get updates on Fukushima and other Nuclear Power Nightmares on our Facebook Page every day at GMT - 7:00 (Pacific Time).