Subcontractor Tells Fukushima Workers To Hide Radiation Exposure 439
First time accepted submitter fredprado writes "Apparently at least one subcontractor hired to clean up the Fukushima site has been urging their workers to put their radiation detectors lined under lead shieldings.
A diagram can be seen here. The authorities decided not to prosecute him, even after one employee presenting them recordings of him trying to talk the said employee into it."
This is why we need more unions and more workers r (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why we need more unions and more workers rights.
and they should be able to use contractors and subcontractors to get out being liable.
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:2, Insightful)
You know... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, it would be a lot easier to refute anti nuclear fears as being overly paranoid if we stopped giving them reasons to be just that. The situation would be have been under much better control and (slightly) less of a PR disaster if they would just stop with the lies.
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the nice thing about the free market. If you don't like something your employer tells you to do, you don't have to work for them. In fact, with a free enough society, you can tell others what your employer tried to tell you to do which will either:
A) Cause the employer's customers not to support him and therefore he goes bust.
B) Cause the employees to all quit their job or demand higher pay to work.
C) Cause the employer to change his orders to prevent A or B from happening.
Don't like being told to hide radiation exposure? Don't work for the guy!
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:5, Insightful)
And how are they supposed to do that? Individual workers calling their Senators up on the phone, each one of them telling the Senator something slightly different from the last one? Senators don't take phone calls from workers. They take phone calls from executives.
Actually, they don't take phone calls from either. They take phone calls from lobbyists, people with whom they have a relationship and who have worked with them before. Corporate management has plenty of money to hire them. Individual workers don't.
They can, however, get together and pool their money to hire a lobbyist. We should make up a name for such a unified group of people.
The authorities decided not to prosecute (Score:4, Insightful)
Government coverup. Just like they lied about how much radiation there really was. (Turns out they cut their readings by 1/3rd.) Or how the government claimed the air quality at the burning WTC wreckage was "safe" even though it wasn't. Governments don't protect the people; they lie, inveigle, and deny.
Doesn't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
Free market Capitalism is fundamentally broken. Adam Smith wasn't a futurist. He had no vision. Ayn Rand was just a little woman afraid of a nasty dictator. Get over your fear, and learn to face facts. Adam couldn't, Ayn couldn't. Can you?
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:one good result: (Score:5, Insightful)
it's ok to think the government would do a poor job at providing for our health
but it's insane to think corporations would do a better job
therefore, you choose government
for example, those europeans with universal healthcare live longer than americans, and pay less for their healthcare
because the american model is not about our health, it is about maximizing profit
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we need more unions and more workers rights.
and they should be able to use contractors and subcontractors to get out being liable.
Actually, in the US, this kind of ridiculously dangerous behavior would be covered by OSHA laws.
OSHA laws which only exist thanks to unions.
Re:Doesn't work. (Score:4, Insightful)
Many people have recognized this.
And many intellectuals have come to recognize Karl Marx as what he was: A great economist.
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:one good result: (Score:4, Insightful)
Ask the working poor who can't afford health insurance how that private medicine thing is working out.
There is nothing more evil or idiotic than blind ideology.
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:5, Insightful)
By that logic corporations should also be illegal.
Re:Doesn't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worth noting that Smith strongly advocated market regulation. He warned that inadequate or incompetent regulation of the market would lead to exactly the sorts of problems we're having now. He further warned against anything like corporate personhood as that would remove moral thinking from economic decisions.
The so-called proponents of Smith's Capitalism are VERY selective about which parts they implement and 100% of his warnings have fallen on deaf ears. They are just as bad as the fundamentalist Jihadists who like to skip over all the bits about not killing 'people of the book'.
Re:one good result: (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I have better things to be doing. (Like posting on Slashdot.) The problem with self-reliance is that it requires you to be an expert at everything you do. Not just proficient, but an expert. If the healthcare company includes a screw-you clause and you miss it, then you are screwed. Think of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The insurance companies sold many people hurricane insurance. A lot of people lost their houses to the storm surge, which the insurance claimed was "flood damage" and, if you didn't have flood insurance, you were out of luck [usatoday.com].
Re:Doesn't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. On the contrary. You need a government to tell COMPANIES what they can and cannot do.
Governments are supposed to represent the citizens, therefore they should do whatever best helps their citizens.
If that means companies have to comply to all kinds of rules and regulations then I see no problem in that. Companies wouldn't mind either, because they are not living things. Managers and shareholders might not like it, but they're citizens like everybody else, and their well-being is no less of more important than that of anybody else.
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:4, Insightful)
Precisely. Although Unions have their own problems that they bring to the table, the general effect is to improve the worker's conditions, safety, wages, etc. As long as they are watched as closely as the Corporations (and to be honest they watch each other), then some balance can be struck where everyone benefits. Without Unions, Corporations are free to abuse their workers without check.
Yes, as people will point out, the worker's are free to quit if they want to - and if they are aware of the problems in the first place - but that is not always a viable alternative in a society and economy where finding a job is practically like winning the lottery at times.
Left to themselves, I think most corporations *will* misuse and abuse their workers in the name of profit.
Re:one good result: (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, insurances can be tricky and sometimes companies find loopholes to screw you, but, on the other hand, governments are incapable of providing a service with similar or better quality in high population countries. The only countries where public health care really works are countries where the population is relatively small.
This is manifestly false. As GP noted, all first world countries with public healthcare show better bang for the buck in that department than does US with its privatized healthcare model. This is regardless of whether they are countries of 3 million or 80 million.
Re:This is why we need more unions and more worker (Score:3, Insightful)