You think you got it bad, flipping burgers for a living?   Turns out the low-level employment sector in Japan has got it just a slight bit worse.  When your job-title nickname is “nuclear gypsy”, it can’t possibly fill you with happy feelings.  These contracted laborers spend their working life bouncing around doing temp work at nuclear power plants.  Low pay, long hours and a cancerous retirement plan.

Workers are picked up similar to the way an American day-laborer might be to help out on the local farm.  A boss-man comes by and tells them that work is available and lets them know how long the job is for.  They then load into the back of a truck and are given their “training” en route.  When they arrive at their destination, they will be given such pleasant tasks as mopping up radioactive spills and filling up drums with nuclear waste. 

While some common sense does apply, none of the workers are told exactly how dangerous the job they are doing is.  They only failsafe is the presence of a radiation meter that tells when a worker has reached over-exposure.  Of course, once you reach that level you get canned, so many workers simply turn them off in order to get more hours – a habit that those in charge happily ignore.  Worse yet, the newer you are to the job, the crappier your job will be and the more willing the boss is to push you towards the high-nuke zone.

Things might be changing for these “nuclear gypsies” soon, however.  It turns out that the Fukushima disaster has brought some attention down on the government regarding their regulatory practices in the nuclear power industry.  Statistics show that just under 90 percent of those working at power plants are hired in this temporary fashion, with only the high-paying, technically trained individuals being regular employees.  With such a wealth of unskilled labor trudging about the power plant, it’s no wonder people are a bit concerned.