TEPCO to employ foreign workers at Fukushima plant under new visa system

So many positive or negative comments?

If given two choices, Foreigners prefer to choose work on hazardous sites in countries like Japan, US than be humiliated in MiddleEast countries.

So, Most Foreigners have two choices.

To work on dangerous areas? Or

To work on common areas but humiliated?

1st one applies or implies on underground, ocean, tunnels, nuclear sites in many developed countries.

2nd applies in all countries but esp. MiddleEast.

I’m an Occupational Health Nurse. TEPCO wants foreign workers for Fukushima Daiichi because there is no official oversight record keeping of occupational illnesses in foreign workers. Is someone expecting accidents to occur in Fukushima Daiichi?

Next,... the SDF is hiring.

Well, it certainly puts a spin on those old kkk jobs ... kitsui, kitenai, kikken.

Now it is 4K jobs for us foreigners 'cause they added a 4th 'k' ... 'kontaminated'.

Yeah, the old boy's club outsourced the English spelling too.

Last year,Already Japan has been criticized from UN experts about exploitation and human rights violations at decontamination of Fukushima.

but, Japanese Abe government ignore it, and rather expanded it.

Fukushima nuclear incident was man-made disaster that Japan's arrogance and negligence and irresponsibility and "nuclear-taboo" caused.

but,Japan chosen to endanger foreigners.

"Cheap and disposable short-term foreign laborers" are very "convenient" for Japanese authorities and nuclear industries.

They have expected to can reduce compensation to radiation disease because foreign labors leave Japan after several years.

Indeed.

If you read Japanese, read Suzuki Tomohiko's: 福島第一潜入記ヤクザと原発, there’s no doubting how deeply crime syndicates are involved in the Fukushima clean up. Any foreign workers are really not going to have a good time if they take up a position anywhere near that appalling company that doesn’t give a hoot about anything but shareholders.

@Zich, it’s the case for many. “Workers” gang pressed into doing the dangerous jobs at the Clean Up Site. Plus, they are not “gypsies”, day works, the employed, the homeless, people.

Just Google something along the lines of: yakuza taking Fukushima workers' money

Once the workers realise that the work is being done by only foreigners wearing facemasks with no Japanese staff, there will be huge numbers dropping out and going awol.

Absolutely stupid. These are professional jobs, must be trained extensively and can communicate fluently anytime, any situations.

Y'all boys pretty well said it. Wow. Sick. Disgusting. All I can do is agree with about 99% of you's guys (bit of native Brooklyn speak there).

Well, Western Countries used to do something similar to this decades ago, but Human Rights groups intervened and that practice was curtailed. Japan is clearly decades behind the rest of the World - I wonder if they have any Home based Human rights groups looking inward ... or even under the new security Laws whether such groups are allowed ?

This is despicable! Shame on Japan to doing this!!

Another aspect of this is rather SCARY, as clearly there are labour problems...…..so that means the SAME at other nuclear plants...…..SO if Japan cant even staff plants with workers it clearly must start shutting down & de-commissioning ALL nuke plants as labour issues will only worsen over time like in the rest of the economy.....

This is getting fricken INSANE!!

Send international warning to NOT work for TEPCO under any circumstances?

It's not the first time to use foreigners. When they were changing a shroud in 1997 and ran into trouble, they used US and SE Asian welders from Arabian oil plants and with experience of building oil tankers, as they were allowed to recieve higher doses of radiation than the locals.

Documented here by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear/special-report-japans-throwaway-nuclear-workers-idUSTRE75N18A20110624

"At Fukushima in 1997, Japanese safety rules were applied in a way that set very low radiation exposure limits on a daily basis, Fujii said. That was a prudent step, safety experts say, but it severely limited what Japanese workers could do on a single shift and increased costs. 

The workaround was to bring in foreign workers who would absorb a full-year’s allowable dose of radiation of between 20 millisieverts and 25 millisieverts in just a few days."

And in typical fashion:

"Tokyo Electric would admit five years later it had hid evidence of the extent of the defect in the shroud from regulators. That may have added to the pressure to finish the job quickly. When new cracks were found, they were fixed without a report to regulators, according to disclosures made in 2002 

It is not clear if the radiation doses for the foreign workers were recorded on an individual basis or if they have faced any heath problems. Tepco said it had no access to the worker records kept by its subcontractors. IHI said it had no record of the hiring of the foreign workers. Toshiba, another major contractor, also said it could not confirm that foreign workers were hired."

Do the foreigners know this and are being paid the FULL amount from the government (including Hazzard pay) rather than the 7 layered system that takes all but 1000yen?

Not surprised one bit. Talk of self centerness, remember some years back when Japan announced that it would be exporting elderly people to some asian countries and the plan had to be aborted after heavy criticism from abroad.

I’d love to see how the job ad is phrased for this one.

@Jimizo - "Love Japan to DEATH? Well here's your chance!"

@San Miguel - The Guardian reported last week on a Greenpeace's survey of the area: "As Japan marked the eighth anniversary of the disaster last month, a Greenpeace investigation revealed high levels of radiation in areas that have been declared safe, and accused the government of misleading the international community about the risks faced by returning evacuees and decontamination workers". 

The cover up and downplaying the severity of the fallout has been going on since day one. Let's not forget, the US recommended a 40k evacuation zone and the French recommended a 60k evacuation zone. It was only the Japanese government that decided on 20k. Let's also not forget it took the TEPCO executives nearly three weeks to admit there was actually a meltdown, despite the the live video showing the containment housing being blown out of the top of the tower in a hydrogen explosion caused by super heating the water in the cooling tanks after a the back up generators failed due to being swamped by the tsunami. A scenario that was predicted and TEPCO was warned to rectify before it became a reality, which they chose to ignore. Now, they intend to send young and naive third-world workers in to clean up their man-made disaster. Shame on Japan! Yeah, Japan is promoted as a happy and culturally significant country. It's just a shame that, under the brochures covered in sushi and cherry blossoms there is a very unscrupulous Japan made up of lies and corruption.

Good idea! Use foreigners. They're expendable! (sarcasm)

I’d love to see how the job ad is phrased for this one.

absolutely disgraceful and to be expected from a disgusting company like TEPCO. This also plays into 'the gaijin are expendable, Japanese shouldn't dirty their hands with this' type mentality.

The Guardian reported last week on a Greenpeace's survey of the area: "As Japan marked the eighth anniversary of the disaster last month, a Greenpeace investigation revealed high levels of radiation in areas that have been declared safe, and accused the government of misleading the international community about the risks faced by returning evacuees and decontamination workers". You can download the survey via the paper: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/10/fukushima-disaster-first-residents-return-to-town-next-to-nuclear-plant

Just...WOW!

Whats with all the negativity. I'm sure the risk are clearly explained to them before hand and safety measures are taken to prevent radiation exposure....

Yeah good luck with that

the visas are over a year long, I do think pension should be excluded or confirmed returned if person leave japan but municipal and health taxes should be collected 100%

I'm the execs at TEPCO had no problem making this decision.

To address exploitation fears under the new visa system, the Justice Ministry issued an ordinance requiring employers to pay wages equivalent to or higher than those of Japanese nationals.

This exploitation has already been exposed with Japanese workers. They pay them a high wage, but take out exuberant amounts for billeting and dorm stay, they take a percentage for 'transaction fees' whatever that is and then, the J-Gov makes them pay the pension and city taxes.

'All' foreign workers on short-term visas should be exempt from paying the pension and city taxes.

To address exploitation fears under the new visa system, the Justice Ministry issued an ordinance requiring employers to pay wages equivalent to or higher than those of Japanese nationals.

This is easily gotten around,and I can see the companies paying the foreign workers a starting pay that a "new" full time, early 20's fresh out of university, employee would get!

Absolutely shameful. And, oh yes, unsurprising. This should be the headline for the entire program. Importing subhuman resources to clean up our messes.

Any country allowing their citizens to sign up for such nonsense is also culpable IMO.

I'm sure there will be "glowing" reports of their work, yet no reports of their painful prolonged death in their home countries ..whooo go Japan nothing beats slave labour.

ah that was the whole plot... well played.

Really? Get someone else to clean up your own mess? I guess it is much easier to kick the lawsuits etc to the curb when they aren't protected by Japanese law and the victims 1) can't afford good representation, and 2) won't be able to emotionally appeal to the courts because they are "different".

It's not like anyone caught is going to go to jail or anything. Hence the layers of contractors. Business as usual

@Zich, “contractors”, you’re being too kind with your descriptions, spell it out: organised crime, the Yakuza. That’s who “owns” these people and their salary.

How desperate would people have to be to volunteer to work at Fukushima? But there are those who put the needs of their families ahead of their own safety

Without doubt non-Japanese already work for this appalling company, doing some real dangerous labor. Their rights and conditions will be worse than those Japanese pulled from the streets of Kamagasaki.

Employed or enslaved. You can bet these foreign trainees will be holding the dirty end of the stick. Let’s hope they are paid the full entitlements for danger money and living allowances and the money is not pocketed by the scalping employment agency.

Exploited? No! /s

This is Japan's problem. Zero foreign workers should be involved, they'll obviously just be exploited

Yeah, didn't see THIS coming at all.

Contaminate the foreigners?

Yes, That has always been the plan. What Japanese would want to work around the worlds most prolific nuclear disaster in the history of the world.

Contaminate the foreigners?