Nuclear Servitude: Subcontracting and Health in the French Civil Nuclear Industry (Work, Health and Environment Series) - Hardcover

Thebaud-Mony, Annie; Levenstein, Charles; Forrant, Robert; Wooding, John

9780895033802: Nuclear Servitude: Subcontracting and Health in the French Civil Nuclear Industry (Work, Health and Environment Series)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0895033801 ISBN 13: 9780895033802

Publisher: Routledge, 2011

This book highlights the dangers of the disorganization of work through subcontracting practices, both for workers' health and for nuclear safety.

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About the Author:

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.

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