Tokyo Damage Report

4 – nuclear waste worker (原発作業員： GENPATSU SANGYOUIN)

 

RISK: ***

SALARY:***

HARD LABOR:***

ILLEGALITY:*

 

In Japan、 nuclear power plants get inspected once a year. Certain workers enter the contaminated core zone check the extent of the radiation, and clean up radioactive waste.

In the past, these workers were called 原発ジプシー　（genpatsu jipushii, or ‘Nuclear Gypsys’） because they’d wander from plant to plant, on sort of a one-year tour. But recently, so many new nuclear power plants have been built that the workers can live in one place and drive to the various plants nearby. 

 

Finding a nuclear-waste worker willing to be interviewed was the most difficult task of this whole book. It was easier to find dealers, mobsters, and swindlers! The reason is that the workers are strongly discouraged from speaking to outsiders. I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘martial law’ but theirs is a very closed culture, and there is an unspoken understanding that members of the culture are not to talk to outsiders. Through the connections of a friend of mine, was able to score a one-on-one phone interview, but once on the phone, I was told, “We have to consider the circumstances of this situation,” in other words, ‘no.’ 

 

Undeterred, I continued to search for a nuclear worker. It wasn’t until ten days before the deadline that I managed to score an appointment with a fellow: Mr. Joinbeauty (43, not his real name), who had worked in a nuclear plant for many years, (although he’s currently retired). Because he lives in Kansai (west Japan), I didn’t have time to interview him in person, so we did it over the phone.

 

THE WORKERS ARE EXTREMELY HEALTHY??

 

“In the business, my job was called HOUKAN (a contraction of 放射線管理, pronounced HOUshasen KANri, meaning ‘nuclear ray management’). Mostly it consisted of monitoring and managing houshanou osen (放射能 汚染 meaning ‘radioactive contamination’), and making sure the regular workers were not exposed to excessive emissions.”

 

He was using a lot of fancy words, but I still didn’t have a clear picture of his every-day duties. Could he explain in more down-to-earth detail?

 

“We only inspect once a year, so the facility is always pretty ‘dirty’ with radiation that has built up since last time. The difference between us and the regular workers – well, we both prepare and maintain the machines, but only us HOUKAN guys go into the core! And only we do the inspections – we have devices that measure the extent of the contamination and the hibaku （被爆： radioactive exposure）. By measuring the hibaku, we can determine how long it’s safe for the regular workers to work at the reactor. The more hibaku,, the shorter the work time. Japanese law dictates that workers be exposed to a maximum of 50 millisieverts per year, but this is much higher than most countries’ legal limits. So the industry has a self-imposed limit of 20 millisieverts per year. What’s more, if a worker is found to be irradiated over that limit, they are forbidden from working at any reactor for one year, for their own safety.

 

“After we finish measuring, the regular workers come in and do maintainance work on the reactor core. There’s some cleaning too, but nothing you could call hard labor. After we seal the core back up, there’s no way for heat to escape, so it gets pretty hot. We’re totally sweating, as we tighten the screws on the core hatch. Then we wipe ourselves off and we’re done.”

 

I was surprised to hear him say they wipe themselves off! They got irradiated with nuclear contaminants, and they’re going to clean up with a towel? Is it really that easy? I asked him. Mr. Joinbeauty responded with a chuckle,

 

“Ha! You can’t wipe off the houshanou. You can’t see it – it’s not a material thing, as you well know! What we’re doing is wiping off the radioactive dust, and the metallic scraps. That’s the only visible indication of radioactive waste, so that’s what you clean up. The regular workers carry a small Geiger counter, the size of a cell-phone. It goes off automatically if the background radiation passes a certain limit, and work stops for the day. I worked at the plant for five years, but the buzzer only went off a countable number of times (ed. Note:  !!!) The threshold for the buzzer – it’s the equivalent of getting a whole bunch of x-rays at once. So that can’t be good for you! That’s why it’s important that us HOUKAN guys do a good job – so the buzzers don’t ring no more! We come in, do our thing, and then the regular guys can start work again.”

 

 

Mr. Joinbeauty’s work-day is only five or six hours long, and the work is not harsh or physically tiring. But the fact is, he’s still exposed to radiation – possibly a large amount, if there’s an ‘incident.’ He’s not too worried about it, though. Even though he absorbs a lot more than the average person, it’s still not enough to alter his biology in a significant way.

 

“People always ask me if we go sterile, or if our body hairs fall out. I’ve never known that to happen to anyone! Besides, if you’re so radiated that you can see physical abnormalities, you’re as good as dead anyway. Around 25 years ago, there was a plant where the management was pretty slip-shod, and some of the guys died from the ‘sleepies’ (ブラブラ病, an incurable syndrome characterized by listlessness and blood running from the nose ) But if you think about it, we’ve come a long way since then. I don’t worry about it.”

 

Mr. Joinbeauty’s tone of voice grew more grave as he continued to speak:

 

“But we do have some physical abnormalities. The white blood cells decrease in number, the lymph nodes get distorted. That’s pretty normal for us – because they’re so small, it’s easy for them to be affected by the radiation. If you take some time off of work, they’ll eventually get back to normal so it’s not a real deal-breaker.”

 

He’s laughing as he’s saying this, but I still have doubts. What if the worker doesn’t take time off? What if they keep going to work with abnormal lymph nodes? I mean, isn’t it the ‘micro’ level of physiology that we should pay the most attention to? It’s on the micro level that our bodies function!

 

“Well, every day when we finish, we get checked to see if radioactive material is adhering to our bodies. That’s the part of the job I don’t like! It’s pretty rare that it is, but if it happens. The treatment is really primitive: they wash the skin with soap! Just like you’d wash your hands. . . There’s another procedure where they have to put you under anesthesia and then burn it off you! But I’ve never been that ‘hot’ so far, knock wood.”

 

 

 

When I asked Joinbeauty about the worker’s general health, his answer surprised me:

 

“We’re surprisingly healthy! People think us nuclear workers must be sick, but that’s just a stereotype. For starters, we’re not allowed to smoke inside the reactor. And of course alcohol isn’t permitted either. It’s like you know how guys – drunks or junkies or whatever - get put in jail, and come out much healthier? It’s like that, I think! Also, we’re in the middle of a ‘Let’s Keep Our Reactor Clean’ campaign. So we get breathing masks, to help keep the radioactive dust out. It’s all good, right?”

 

It appears I was mistaken. The nuclear cleanup crew is just another bunch of regular blue-collar guys!

 

WE GET $100 A DAY AFTER KICKBACKS ARE DEDUCTED

 

I asked about the way workers got paid.

 

“I’m not totally sure myself, but I’ll tell you what I know: Us guys are employed by a ‘grandchild company’, which itself is a subsidiary of the ‘child company’ of the power company which owns the plant. So there’s a lot of pinhane (ピンはね, meaning kickbacks). What I heard is, the power plant pays out between 700 or 800 dollars per day per worker. The child company takes a cut, then the grandchild company takes a cut, and at the end the worker gets around $100 of that. Of course, since us HOUKAN guys are licensed to go into the core, we get treated a bit more favorably – around $150 per day. Not bad money if you think about the workload.”

 

I asked Mr. Joinbeauty if we could resume his explanation of his everyday job duties:

 

“Well it’s like this: every plant is different, right? But most plants are divided into four sectors: A,B,C, and D. Sector D is what you’d call the core, the spot with the high levels. So only us certified HOUKAN guys go in there.

 

“Guys in sectors A through C just wear overalls – yellow overalls. But us D-sector guys get the full bunny-suits, with the anti-radiation insulation and filter masks. At the end of the day, we got to change clothes, and go home in civilian clothes. But this isn’t done for our health – we already done absorbed whatever – it’s to prevent you guys from coming into contact with the radioactive dust on our bunny-suits! It’s really hot in D-sector: around 40 celsius (around 104 degrees farenheit) ! And we’re in there with these monstrously heavy suits on. That’s the most rugged part of this job. As long as I’ve been working, only one guy bit it. And it wasn’t the hibaku(radioactive emissions), either! It was his filter – it malfunctioned and he couldn’t breathe. Poor guy was asphyxiating in 40 degree heat! Thing is, he had a weak heart to begin with. By the time we got him out, he was already dead. What a waste!”

 

ONCE YOU WORK HERE FOR THREE YEARS, YOU CAN’T QUIT!

 

I wonder how many people want to apply for a job at the nuclear power plant? There’s a lot of other jobs that pay the same, without radiation as a co-worker. I asked Mr. Joinbeauty if there was a shortage of workers in the industry.

 

“There sure is! We have a saying: ‘If you work for more than three years, you can’t quit!” (ed. Note: presumably, quitting would put too much of a strain on your former co-workers, whom you feel a bond with) If you could see the radiation leaks – like if the air turned blue or something, then I don’t think we could find any workers at all! But you can’t see it, so no problem! Get back to work, buddy. Anyway, we got kind of a closed society in here. A brotherhood, like. So if you don’t have connections, you couldn’t get hired even if you wanted in!

 

“We don’t advertise the jobs in ‘hello work’ magazines or sites. In my case, I went out and got some nuclear industry trade magazines. “Nuclear Times” or “Reactor Core Monthly” or whatever. I read ‘em all! There’s some want-ads in there. The other way to get hired – if you’re not connected – is to skip the main nuclear companies altogether and aim for the subsidiary ‘grand-child companies.’ Like, Big Company A owns the reactor, but Child-company B handles the cleaning. Or Grand-child company C handles the inspections. Or if you find out when a reactor is scheduled for clean-up, just go outside on that day and wait. It’s not rare for there to be a bunch of day-laborers waiting!”

 

On the streets, there’s no shortage of interesting rumors that I’d like to get to the bottom of. For instance, homeless from Ueno park being offered $100 for a days’ work at a reactor. “There’s also that side of the business!” replies Mr. Joinbeauty. “In this industry, you hear a lot of rumors about Yakuza involvement in the subsidiary companies. I can’t say those rumors are all false. There’s a lot of day-laborers at our plant, and some of them have gang tattoos, too! Who knows what they’re up to? It’s a mystery, right?”

 

Mr. Joinbeauty’s final hint was this bit of wisdom:

“Before you apply, go down to the local pub and see how the regulars feel about the plant. Some communities are really galvanized into action to protest the reactor. If you take a job in that kind of town, you won’t be able to go drinkin’ in the bars after a hard days’ work. The locals will get all in your face: ‘Say, buddy, are you gonna give me cancer with your dirty drunk face? Who are you lookin’ at?’ So it’s better to know beforehand whether you can get your drink on!”