RE: NY Times - nuke guards swamped by overtime

[Jack_Earley@RL.GOV]

Many of us on this project worked 12 hours per day or more, often six days a

week instead of five, for the first six or seven months of this year, and

we're now working 52 hours per week minimum. I don't recall anyone "losing

it" or becoming "basket cases." We've had people leave, but as far as I know

not because of the work hours--more likely because of the commute to the

"north 40" and because most of us are consultants--when contracts expire,

people don't always renew them.



Jack Earley

Radiological Engineer





-----Original Message-----

From: Kent, Michael D. [mailto:Michael.Kent@nmcco.com]

Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 8:04 AM

To: Norman Cohen; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: RE: NY Times - nuke guards swamped by overtime









>To do so, it put the guards on 12-hour shifts instead of 8, often six days

a week instead of five.



>"If something happened, these would be basket cases," said Peter Stockton,

a security expert

>who was a special assistant to the secretary of energy in the Clinton

administration and now works with the

>Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that

recently wrote a report on

>problems in power plant security.  



Gee I hope our Armed forces don't encounter any terrorist or bad guys,

because they would be basket cases.  How many days has our Armed Forces been

in Afghanistan????????  They must be ready to blow a gasket.  I wonder how I

lasted on a submarine, submerged for 88 days, watch every 12 hours,

sometimes every six hours. I am sure a Carrier has been in the Med for at

least five months right now, and those people are working more hours than

that.



> In an interview, one guard at the plant here acknowledged that she "just

lost it" at work one day.



Note:  Not everyone was meant to work at a Nuclear Power Plant.  If someone

cannot handle the stress, it's time to go work somewhere else.  It is a free

country, people can, and do, quit their job all the time.  If you do not

want to work 12 hours QUIT!!!!!!!



>Overtime has always been common at nuclear plants during refueling

shut-downs, but those typically last                      >weeks, not

months. Mr. McGaffigan



This is a relatively new occurrence.  Shutdowns did use to last for months.



Just my own observations.



Michael D. Kent

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