Three thousand employees have left the utility at the center of Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster because of pay cuts and risk of radiation exposure. And there’s an extra factor: better paying jobs in the solar energy industry. Workers at TEPCO were typical of Japan’s corporate culture that is well-known for loyalty to a single company and lifetime employment with it, but the March 2011 tsunami changed that.
TEPCO was criticized for being inadequately prepared for a tsunami despite Japan’s long history of being hit by tsunami waves and for its disordered response to the disaster. The public turned hostile toward the nuclear industry and TEPCO, according to AP.
Based on statistics only 134 people left company the year before the disaster. But then the departures increased to 465 in 2011, another 712 in 2012 and 488 last year.
More than have of those leaving were younger than 40.
All this reduced TEPCO staff to about 35,700 people, adds to the challenges of the ongoing work at Fukushima Dai-ichi to keep meltdowns under control, remove the fuel cores and safely decommission the reactors, which is expected to take decades.
The financial tension of the disaster has led to salary cuts while ongoing problems at Fukushima continued. “No one is going to want to work there, if they can help it, said Akihiro Yoshikawa, who quit TEPCO in 2012.
After leaving he started a campaign called “Appreciate Fukushima Workers,” trying to counter what he calls the “giant social stigma” attached to working at the Fukushima plant.
Many of the workers were also victims of the nuclear disaster, living in the area they lost their homes, adding to personal hardships. They also worry about health of their children.
In an effort to stop the loss of skilled personnel, TEPCO is reducing the pay cuts to seven percent from this month, but only for those who are involved in decommissioning the Fukushima plant.
20052014 The Voice of Russia