Stigmatized nuclear workers quit TEPCO

What is surprising is that people actually STAYED on and WORKED there under those risky conditions. !!!! . . . The Japanese Government NEEDS to learn from this tragedy and NOT recommission other reactors around Japan. . . .Nuclear disasters allow for no contingency plans - the destruction is never ending- ultimately cost more.

I wouldn't work for them either! This is the most important job in Japan's history and the workers are being screwed by TEPCO, the yaks and the government. It's absolutely disgusting!

New Arrivals (Immigrants) should be extra-vigilant about lucrative job offers in this region.

I guess the fervent nationalism that pulled Japan out of the dregs of WW2 is a rare commodity nowadays. I am conflicted with this report in that I know that japan needs to make the most extreme of efforts to stabilize the reactor and surrounding facilities and clean up the radioactive dirt and water but at the same time too is it worth a life of undocumented sicknesses and cancer like the Chernobyl liquidators suffered? We should really cherish and honor the people that are on the front line of this disaster like the Americans are doing with the heros that reported to the 9-11 disaster scene

@Disillusioned: You hit the nail on the head. It's a dirty triangle of corruption with TEPCO, the government and the J-Mafia using this disaster to suck off the taxpayer's teat.

TEPCO has brought on ALL it's woes due to in's disastrous management decisions both pre and post-disaster. The list is too expansive to detail but just how it has mistreated it's own personnel, not to mention how TEPCO alludes responsibility by having most of the radioactive cleanup handled by sub-contractors who hire short-term contract workers at a pittance to do all of TEPCO's dirty work and then suggest it's not their responsibility when they are injured, exposed to excessive radiation or are raped of their wages is appalling to say the least.

Then the fact that TEPCO has taken every opportunity to weasel it's way out of paying any compensation by claim forms being several dozen pages long, denying untold numbers of claims due to frivolous reasons, refusing decisions of the Dispute Reconciliation Committee for Nuclear Damage Compensation, a governmental body tasked with overseeing that the victims are treated justly and to do so after receiving an unprecedented amount of tax payer's money to boot is mind-boggling.

BUT, what is far worse than the heinous and potentially criminal management decisions of this once proud and impressive corporation is the silence on the part of the politicians and bureaucrats in the central government who continue to condone all this by doing nothing. The biggest mistake made by ALL Japanese administrations following the disaster was not to force a government take-over of TEPCO and take it out of the hands of the reckless TEPCO boardroom, top-management and shareholders whose only consideration has been to put profit and stock value above ALL else, and there were loud calls for a government take-over and delisting of it's stock. Although forced government bailouts are truly frightening and make us cringe with fear, what TEPCO has done and is allowed to continue doing by the leaders of Japan is FAR, FAR worse than what would be done by the government who would have to answer to the people, NOT to shareholders and consideration for it's stock price, and who might place just a little more emphasis on safety, at any cost, and the environment.

It is a tremendous loss that talented employees are fleeing the sinking TEPCO but can they really be blamed when it's them whom are being tossed out of the life-boats?

“TEPCO has grown into a target of people’s hate,”

And justifiably so. And a 100,000 yen bonus to managers for them to stay on while they are stigmatized, face irradiation, have pay cuts, work in stressful and awful conditions, and are treated like crap so that the fat cats at the top can try and get back in the black? No much incentive, I'd say.

My Japanese coworker came up with a good idea. Im elaborating and paraphrasing but... Anyone in prison for murder or a double digit jail sentence should be MADE to work at the plants. Theres already many reports of unqualified workers at the plants so jail inmates should be at the same level. Give them low level jobs. Make these people repay their debt this way instead of living in a room better than my 50000¥ a month room and their three meals a day. Taking it one step further (since it should be a worldwide effort but its not..) and get inmates from all over the world.

thats the good solution!

What Mr. Perfect and zichi said. Nationalize TEPCO, delist the stock, and revoke the golden handshakes. Also convict the perpertrators. Sounds like they are piling up new offenses.

@zichi Jul. 15, 2014 - 12:31AM JST

The company haven't been fined a single yen nor as a any directors spent a single minute in prison.

Great point zichi. The prosecutors office entertained a criminal liability suit sought against former Prime Minister Naoto Kan by a citizens group claiming it was he who precipitated the chain of events at TEPCO's Daichi plant but has just one charge been leveled at TEPCO or any of it's top management to date by the Public Prosecutors Office on their own initiative? Have police or prosecutors even entertained the idea of holding anyone at TEPCO criminally responsible for any of the countless legal irregularities pre or post 3/11?

Any other entity or individual in Japan outside of TEPCO would have been forced blindfolded down the prosecution plank and into life-long obscurity for just a fraction of what TEPCO and the gang have gotten away with! Come on Public Prosecutors Office and National Police Agency directors, at least give the public the impression you are functioning, impartial and treat all with the same level of over-zealousness and unfairness we have come to expect.

It's sad that the workers feel stigmatized, because they were never the problem! It's the execs at TEPCO who are the real pariahs!

'The factors pushing workers out have piled up. The financial strain of the disaster has led to brutal salary cuts while ongoing problems at Fukushima, such as substantial leaks of irradiated water, have reinforced the image of a bumbling and irresponsible organization.'

It couldn't also be due to the danger of working in hostile radioactive environments could it?