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An Item of interest to some. FROM: UK “Independent” Newspaper Revealed: Race hate 'exposed black workers to radiation at BNFL plant' By Marie Woolf, Andrew Buncombe and Solomon Hughes 13 August
2002 British
Nuclear Fuels is being sued by black workers at an American plant who claim it
shares responsibility for deliberately assigning jobs that exposed them to
almost twice as much radiation as their white colleagues in an environment of
"hostile racism". Black workers at the Westinghouse
Savannah River Company (WSRC) – a company in which BNFL has a major financial
stake – say they found nooses left in their lockers, racist graffiti scrawled
on lavatory walls and heard parts of the plant referred to as the "coon
area". They say black workers were
constantly overlooked for promotion, despite being better qualified than their
white colleagues. The revelation of the lawsuits,
involving 32 individual plaintiffs seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars,
will be of considerable embarrassment to BNFL, which says it is strictly
opposed to racism. Last night, MPs, trade union leaders and anti-racism
campaigners called for the government-owned company to launch an immediate
investigation. In the US, workers at the South Carolina plant asked BNFL to
intervene and settle the claims. Alan Simpson, Labour MP for
Nottingham South and a former race relations official, said: "It cannot be
acceptable under any circumstances for a British company to be involved in any
way in these practices. This has moved from prejudice to the criminal and in
some cases to the life-threatening. No one is suggesting BNFL was responsible
for this but they have rebranded themselves as a clean-up company and they
ought to clean up their own house first." Simon Woolley, head of Operation
Black Vote, said: "We are talking about the levels of racism seen in
Birmingham, Alabama, in the Sixties. [For] a British company not to be dealing
with it head-on is completely and utterly scandalous." The allegations focus on the Savannah
River Site (SRS), a former nuclear weapons production facility that now
reprocesses nuclear waste in Aiken, South Carolina. The US Department of Energy
site, in which BNFL has a 40 per cent economic interest, was found by the American
equal opportunities watchdog to have a "racially hostile work
environment". But the lawsuits go further, alleging
that black employees were deliberately placed in jobs that carried a greater
risk of exposure to radiation. This is based on a report by James
Ruttenber, of the University of Colorado. Using the WSRC's own data, Mr
Ruttenber, an expert in toxic exposure in the workplace, concluded black
workers were routinely placed in jobs with, on average, 80 per cent more
radiation than whites. The report by Mr Ruttenber, which the
plaintiffs are trying to enter as evidence, said: "The analyses support
the hypothesis that these differences are due to job placement practices that
put blacks in jobs that have higher radiation exposures than whites." The lawsuits date from 1997, when a
New York lawyer, Ivan Smith, tried to bring a class action for 99 workers. Mr
Smith said that when he visited the site he was subjected to a hit-and-run car
attack and told: "Nigger, get out." WSRC – which has spent $25m
(£16m) of the US Department of Energy's money fighting the lawsuits, opposed
the class action and a court ruled in its favour. Three plaintiffs withdrew
their claims, and 62 settled with WSRC out of court. Those settlements
stipulated that company did not accept any wrongdoing. A spokesman said the company settled
because it was cheaper than going to court. The remaining cases are to return
to court in October. Last night, the WSRC spokesman said that the company would
"certainly defend itself in court". There is no implication that BNFL
encouraged or condoned racism at the site. Last night, it said it had been
reassured that any problems, which it said emerged before it bought
Westinghouse, had been resolved. "Since the acquisition of
Westinghouse, BNFL has been satisfied that Westinghouse Government Services has
conducted itself properly," a spokesman said. "Following the
allegations, policies and procedures were extensively reviewed internally and
by external experts, and we are confident they are legally sound and are
consistent with best equal-opportunities practice. BNFL has a strict policy on
equal opportunities and does not condone activities contrary to this. Should
new information come to light, we will consider it." WSRC is a subsidiary of Westinghouse
Government Services. WGS. BNFL has a 40 per cent stake in WSRC, but plays no
part in the day-to-day running of the plant. BNFL Savannah River Corporation, a
company that BNFL owns, has a subcontract with the WSRC. It has also been named
in one of the continuing lawsuits. |