The health ministry is calling on the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to carefully reconsider its policy of using foreign workers at the complex, citing potential safety hazards.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare noted that Tokyo Electric Power Co. is keen to hire foreign workers under a new specified skills visa category that took effect in April, but urged the company May 21 to exercise “extreme caution.”
The ministry expressed fears that allowing foreign nationals with a limited command of Japanese to work at a venue contaminated with radioactive substances might lead to work-related accidents and long-term health problems.
The same day, the ministry also instructed TEPCO and its contractors involved in decommissioning to take at least the same level of protective measures for foreign workers as Japanese employees with regard to safety sanitation and managing radiation exposure and health.
Even though eight years have passed since the triple meltdown, radiation levels remain high in many areas of the Fukushima plant, especially around the reactor buildings.
The decommissioning process that is expected to take years will involve a range of gargantuan tasks, one being the removal of melted nuclear fuel debris from the reactors.
Under the recently revised immigration control law, foreign workers with specified skills are permitted to work at nuclear power plants.
The ministry acknowledges that it is ultimately up to individual employers to decide whether or not to accept foreign workers on their payrolls.
But experts in Japan and overseas who are keen for the new visa program to be a success have also voiced concerns about foreign workers at the Fukushima plant developing radiation-related health issues and being able to manage them after they return to their home countries.
Foreign workers arriving in Japan in one of the two categories of specified skills can stay in the country for up to five years.
“Since there are no legal constraints, the ministry moved one step ahead of TEPCO,” said a senior ministry official, referring to the request for a rethink of the policy.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga referred to the ministry's caution at a May 21 news conference, saying that TEPCO should be prepared to fully address a range of health-related problems that may arise in the future.
A public relations official at the utility said the company will carefully weigh the ministry's concerns and report back promptly on how it intends to proceed.
An official close to TEPCO said the company has not decided to aggressively recruit foreign workers at the Fukushima plant.
The utility notified dozens of its contractors at a meeting in late March that it will accept foreign workers at the Fukushima plant.
Currently, about 4,000 people toil at the plant each day. Most areas of the complex are categorized as controlled areas to guard against radiation exposure.
Under the law, workers at a nuclear facility must not be exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation over five years and 50 millisieverts a year.