Fukushima workers quit Japan utility in droves over stigma, pay cuts

Stigma, pay cuts and risk of radiation exposure are among the reasons why 3,000 employees have left the utility at the center of Japan's 2011 nuclear disaster. Now there's an additional factor: better-paying jobs in the feel-good solar energy industry.

Engineers and other employees at TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power Co., were once mainstays of Japan's corporate culture, which is famous for prizing loyalty to a single company and lifetime employment with it. 

But the March 2011 tsunami that swamped the coastal Fukushima Daiichi plant, sending three reactors into meltdown, changed that.

After the disaster, TEPCO was widely criticized for being inadequately prepared for a tsunami despite Japan's long history of being hit by giant waves. The company bungled its response to the resulting damage, prompting hostile reactions from the public.

The ramifications of the company's errors now seem to be manifesting in regular employee departures. While just 134 people quit TEPCO the year before the disaster, resignations ballooned to 465 in 2011, another 712 in 2012 and 488 last year.

Seventy percent of those leaving were younger than 40. When the company offered voluntary retirement for the first time earlier this year, some 1,151 workers applied for the 1,000 available retirement packages.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported late last year that the cleanup effort was being hampered by a lack of oversight and a shortage of workers. The report indicated that Japanese gangsters had infiltrated construction subcontractors and dispatched people it deemed workers for the government-funded project. Reuters also reported that homeless men had been rounded up and put to work at the nuclear-plant site for less than minimum wage. 

Nevertheless, the TEPCO exodus, which has reduced staff to about 35,700, adds to the challenges of the ongoing work at Fukushima to keep meltdowns under control, remove the fuel cores and safely decommission the reactors, which is expected to take decades.

The factors pushing workers out have piled up. The financial strain of the disaster has led to brutal salary cuts, while ongoing problems at Fukushima, such as substantial leaks of irradiated water, have reinforced the image of a bumbling and irresponsible organization.

"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," an attempt 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, as residents of the area. They lost their homes to no-go zones, adding to personal hardships. They also worry about the health effects of radiation on their children.

The stigma is such that some employees hide the fact they work at the plant. They even worry that they will be turned away at restaurants or that their children will be bullied at school after a government report documented dozens of cases of discrimination.

While TEPCO is out of favor with the public, the skills and experience of its employees, who span the gamut of engineers, project managers, maintenance workers and construction and financial professionals, are not.

Energy industry experience is in particular demand as the development of solar and other green energy businesses is pushed along in Japan by generous government subsidies. The government pays solar plants 32 yen (31 cents) per kilowatt-hour of energy. 

Sean Travers, Japan president of EarthStream, a London-based recruitment company that specializes in energy jobs, has been scrambling to woo TEPCO employees as foreign companies do more clean-energy business in Japan.

"TEPCO employees are very well trained and have excellent knowledge of how the Japanese energy sector works, making them very attractive," he said.

Besides their experience, knowledge of the industry and their contacts with both private industry and government bureaucracy are prized assets.

"It's about the human network, and the TEPCO employees have all the contacts," said Travers, who said he has recruited about 20 people from TEPCO and is hoping to get more.

Amid the employee exodus, TEPCO has tried to stem its financial woes. Though the company was bailed out by the government after the disaster, compensating the thousands of people forced to evacuate from the vicinity of the plant is expected to weigh on TEPCO for years.

"We need people for decommissioning," company spokesman Kohji Sasakibara said. "But we have caused a disaster, affecting not only Japan but the whole world. And so we must work harder to gain public understanding."

Given such dire conditions, it's inevitable that TEPCO workers are looking to build careers elsewhere, according to Naoyuki Takaki, professor of nuclear engineering at Tokyo City University.

Takaki recalled that Japan's nuclear industry in its heyday had a magical allure, like space exploration. He believes it is still a viable field of study and an important profession, bringing clear benefits for society.

Takaki, a former TEPCO researcher who quit in 2008, said the number of students entering the nuclear field has shrunk after the disaster. That means the shortage of nuclear professionals could become even more critical in coming years.

"TEPCO has grown into a target of people's hate," he said.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Japanese media uncovered the site where TEPCO is building a massive underground ice wall to contain leaking radioactive water. 

The utility is planning to build a nearly 1-mile underground wall of ice around four reactor buildings at Fukushima to prevent underground water from flowing in and stop radioactive water from seeping into the Pacific Ocean.

In the three years since the massive earthquake and tsunami set off nuclear meltdowns, TEPCO has fought a constant battle to pump out, treat and store hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated water.

While a similar plan by TEPCO to freeze some of the 11,000 tons of toxic water pooled in trenches below two of the reactor buildings has been criticized as flawed, plant manager Akira Ono was optimistic about the ice wall under construction.

"The ice wall itself has been tested," Ono said. "And in those cases we've seen that the ground itself does freeze, so I myself am not that worried that it will not go well."

Al Jazeera and wire services