Tepco

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 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.