The Japanese government is recruiting homeless people for less than minimum wage to work on its nuclear cleanup project at the Fukushima plant, according to a Reuters report.
When a massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed villages across Japan's northeast coast, it set off multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Current billion dollar government-funded efforts to clean up the nuclear plant are running behind schedule because of worker shortage and lack of oversight, according to an analysis of contracts and interviews conducted by Reuters.
In the months of January, October, and November this year, Japanese Yakuza members were arrested after infiltrating a network of decontamination subcontractors of Obayashi Corporation, Japan's second largest construction company, who is in-charged with the cleanup. The gangsters were reportedly sending illegal workers to the cleanup.
But during the October roundup, homeless men were recruited to work in clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima. Their pay - less than minimum wage.
Obayashi is one of more than 20 major contractors involved in government-funded radiation removal projects. Since black market recruitment, the construction company has not been accused of any wrongdoing, according to Reuters.
However, the number of arrests involving members of the countries three largest syndicates is an indication that they have been recruiting in the black market under the pretense of recruitment agencies under Obayashi.
"We are taking it very seriously that these incidents keep happening one after another," Junichi Ichikawa, a spokesman for Obayashi, told Reuters. "There were elements of what we had been doing that did not go far enough."
Ichikawa said that Obayashi has already tightened the company's recruitment of its lower-tier subcontractors in order to shut out gangsters, known as the yakuza.
At this rate, it's difficult to monitor the number of companies involved in the decontamination project. The Fukushima cleanup involves many companies as well as subcontractors. In its investigation, Reuters found 733 companies were performing work for the Ministry of the Environment.
"As a general matter, in cases like this, we would have to start by looking at whether a company like this is real," Shigenobu Abe, a researcher at Teikoku Databank, told Reuters. "After that, it would be necessary to look at whether this is an active company and at the background of its executive and directors."
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