Nuclear Servitude

by Thebaud-mony, Annie; Jacobs-Colas, Amy

• ISBN13: 9780895033802
• ISBN10: 0895033801
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-05
• Publisher: Baywood Pub Co

Summary

France's nuclear facilities, which include 58 reactors, are half a century old. This is an industry in which risks to health in the short, medium, and long terms seem both the most dreaded and the most controversial. Every year, around 30,000 employees of "outside" companies perform maintenance in France's nuclear power plants. These workers receive 80% of the total annual occupational exposure to ionizing radiation in French nuclear plants. The sociological study presented in this book began with some workers' accounts of their experiences, and analyzes the social division of labor that divides workers' activities between highly specialized operations and "nuclear servitude"-a highly suggestive term designating the indispensable tasks that entail the most exposure to radiation while preparing for other maintenance operations. Nuclear producers strictly observe regulatory exposure limits by managing job exposures by radiation doses and externalizing the problems. Outsourcing the risky work prevents challenges from unions and public officials, and firms can claim that radiation exposures are controlled and do not endanger workers' health. This problem, a terrible contradiction at the heart of the nuclear industry, has been socially constructed to render it invisible. This book highlights the dangers of the "disorganization" of work through subcontracting practices, both for workers' health and for nuclear safety. It also demonstrates the adverse effects of flexibility on the production of knowledge about occupational hazards, especially the effects of low-level radiation on health. The results of this French study sound an alarm for organizational choices in the nuclear industry worldwide.Intended Audience: Public officials, public health professionals, radioprotection specialists, academic staff in social sciences, students, journalists, trade unions, NGOs fighting for human rights, lawyers, citizens concerned about the future of energy choices.

Author Biography

Annie ThTbaud-Mony, Ph.D., is director of research at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Institute on Social-Social Sciences, Policies, Health (IRIS), and director of the Scientific Group on Occupational Cancer (GISCOP93). A sociologist in the field of occupational health, ThTbaud-Mony has developed studies on social inequalities in health, occupational injuries and diseases, the rules and practices of prevention in workplaces, and the social division of work and occupational risks. She has been an active participant in international research networks on occupational health, especially with Brazil, Australia, the United States, Canada, and Japan. In 2008 she received awards for her book Travailler peut nuire gravement a votre santT (Working can seriously damage your health; published in 2007) from the Association of Medical Journalists of the Press and from the medical review Prescrire.