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<< A Funny | Main | Labor Roundup >> April 12, 2004Trusting Nuclear Plants to Cut-Rate LawbreakersRead this report about Wackenhut security services and its sloppy practices guarding nuclear power plants. You'd think in the post-911 world, we'd want the best-paid, best-trained people in the world guarding nuclear materials, but...nope, we've got Wackenhut, a company that has falsified safety tests, illegally forced guards to work excessive hours, and threatened workers with termination when they tried to blow the whistle on problems in nuclear plants. The report is by Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is working to organize the workers to increase their pay and improve their working conditions. So you can read the report with that in mind, but it's worth noting that a chunk of their information comes directly from this report by the Project On Government Oversight, a general "good government" group that investigates mismanagement throughout the government. Why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq, yet hiring a low-rent outfit like Wackenhut to provide security at our nuclear facilities? Update: Tim Dunlop has more here to keep you awake at night worrying about the safety of our nuclear facilities. More: Noah Shachtman has more at his blog and from his Wired Magazine article about the security cheating done by Wackenhut at the nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, TN. Posted by Nathan at April 12, 2004 07:06 PM Related posts:
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsWackenhut is also in the private prisons business, and is infamous here in New York among immigration lawyers for its detention facility in Queens. Posted by: J. J. Gass at April 12, 2004 06:58 PM Because Wackenhut's prices are all we can afford after blowing all the cash in Iraq? Yes, yes...rhetorical question, I know. Posted by: Linkmeister at April 13, 2004 02:34 AM Because Wackenhut's prices are all we can afford after blowing all the cash in Iraq? Yes, yes...rhetorical question, I know. Posted by: Linkmeister at April 13, 2004 02:36 AM There was also an article about the deficiencies in security at nuclear power plants in Vanity Fair at the end of last year. Posted by: James at April 13, 2004 03:07 PM Here's a link to a really amazing blog put on the Web by a Ukranian woman who rode her motorcycle through the area around Chernobyl. Yikes... http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html Posted by: peter jung at April 13, 2004 09:58 PM Peter: Thanks. That has got to be one of the most riveting, moving web sites I have ever seen. Posted by: Kathryn Cramer at April 23, 2004 03:55 PM Posted by: deep blue sea at June 10, 2004 11:15 AM Post a comment
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