First Arrest Made Linking Yakuza with Fukushima Nuclear Clean-Up Crews

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. As I read more about Tepco & yakuza,

it gets worse, and one of the reasons the Japanese Gov't finally nationalized Tepco.

TEPCO has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the nation of Japan: cronyism, collusion, gentrification, corruption, weak regulation, and entropy. Despite being in the spotlight for the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, TEPCO continues to engage in questionable labor practices, and has escaped bankruptcy in closed-door meetings with politicians, and through denying culpability has shifted part of the reparations burden onto taxpayers – deeds which testify to the extent to which TEPCO still has plenty of political power, if not as much nuclear power.

After an expose in the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun, last week TEPCO admitted that 69 of its plant workers can’t be located for radiation checks—30 of them were found not even to have had their names recorded. This raises questions about how these workers were recruited, paid, monitored for radiation exposure, or vetted before entering the site of the nuclear disaster. Former and current workers within the plant testify that many of the hired hands are yakuza or ex-yakuza members. One company supplying the firm with contract workers is a known Japanese mafia front company. TEPCO when questioned would only say, “We don’t have knowledge of who is ultimately supplying the labor at the end of the outsourcing. We do not have organized crime exclusionary clauses in our standard contracts but are considering it.” The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) has asked the company to “submit a report” on the matter.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/06/tepco-will-someone-turn-lights/39364/