Tattooed workers entering the controlled area Nuclear power plant labor from the high-growth period to before and after the accident

Tattooed workers entering the controlled area Nuclear power plant labor from the high-growth period to before and after the accident

Testimony that it was not uncommon to find workers with tattoos in the changing rooms of nuclear power plants highlights the discrepancy between the strict image of the term "controlled area" and the reality of the work site. Since the period of rapid economic growth, nuclear power plant construction and maintenance work has involved many dangerous and grueling processes, and there has been a chronic shortage of labor. Unable to secure workers through regular employment channels alone, day laborers, ex-convicts, and gangsters were recruited to the site. Tattoos were originally a subject of caution, but they were tolerated at the site, and what mattered was a body that could work there today, rather than rules and regulations. Formalities took precedence over substance, and entry into the controlled area was kept to a minimum. Even if a worker was temporarily banned after being found with a syringe, he or she could return to work after a certain amount of time had passed. This
situation shows that the huge national enterprise of nuclear power was built on a fragile labor structure and near-disposable personnel operations at the end of the line. Safety management existed, but it was a system that was skeletonized to fit reality rather than an idealized safety assurance. The sight of workers covered in tattoos working normally is a silent testament to the history of nuclear power plants' dependence on the bodies of people placed on the margins of society.