Today in Labor History—May 8

Ricardo Flores Magon (by Alberto Beltran)

May 8, 1911 – Tijuana was captured by the anarchist Magonistas, with support by IWW members, giving them control of most of Baja California is now almost entirely in their hands. They encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands, to create co-operatives and refuse the establishment of any new government. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1916 – The American Federation of Teachers was founded. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1925 - A. Philip Randolph and Milton P. Webster founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Brotherhood was the very first African-American labor union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S. corporation. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 8, 1936 –19 Japanese anarchists were imprisoned for "illegal activities.” The anarchist Tôkyô Print Workers' Union was crippled when nearly 100 of its members were arrested. Over the course of May, a further 300 anarchists were swept up in mass arrests. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1945 – Germany surrendered. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1962 – An estimated 9,000,000 Belgians participated in a ten-minute work stoppage to protest nuclear weapons. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1967 – A federal grand jury indicted Mohammed Ali for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces. He was convicted by an all-white jury on June 20th. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1979 – Police killed 23 people and wounded 70 outside the municipal cathedral of San Salvador, El Salvador. The victims were members of the Popular Revolutionary Bloc, a coalition of anti-government students, teachers, peasants & workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—May 8

Ricardo Flores Magon (by Alberto Beltran)

May 8, 1911 – Tijuana was captured by the anarchist Magonistas, with support by IWW members, giving them control of most of Baja California is now almost entirely in their hands. They encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands, to create co-operatives and refuse the establishment of any new government. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1916 – The American Federation of Teachers was founded. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1925 - A. Philip Randolph and Milton P. Webster founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Brotherhood was the very first African-American labor union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S. corporation. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 8, 1936 –19 Japanese anarchists were imprisoned for "illegal activities.” The anarchist Tôkyô Print Workers' Union was crippled when nearly 100 of its members were arrested. Over the course of May, a further 300 anarchists were swept up in mass arrests. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1945 – Germany surrendered. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1962 – An estimated 9,000,000 Belgians participated in a ten-minute work stoppage to protest nuclear weapons. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1967 – A federal grand jury indicted Mohammed Ali for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces. He was convicted by an all-white jury on June 20th. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1979 – Police killed 23 people and wounded 70 outside the municipal cathedral of San Salvador, El Salvador. The victims were members of the Popular Revolutionary Bloc, a coalition of anti-government students, teachers, peasants & workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

Japan Deliberately Exposing Children to Unsafe Levels of Radiation

The Japanese government has loosed the rules on the amount of radiation children can be exposed to at school. The rules were relaxed in order to allow schools in the region of the nuclear disaster to re-open. However, they are now allowing children to be exposed to ten times the amount of radiation that was previously permissible, according to the Teacher Solidarity website.

Physicians for Social Responsibility condemned the decision, saying that the new limit of 20 millisieverts “for children exposes them to a 1 in 200 risk of getting cancer. And if they are exposed to this dose for two years, the risk is 1 in 100. There is no way that this level of exposure can be considered ‘safe’ for children.”

A statement from the Fukushima Teachers Union is reposted from the Teacher Solidarity website below:

Protect Children from Radiation Health Damage

Since the terrible disaster of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the radiation levels remain incredibly high. For the protection of children from health damage by radiation, we have been continuously urging the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Fukushima Prefecture Education Board to set guidelines for security measures. On April 19, a month after the catastrophe, the MEXT finally notified “Tentative Guideline on Use of School Buildings and Playgrounds in Fukushima Prefecture”. On this “guidelines”, however, many anxious voices are raised from the parents and teachers in Fukushima whether their children could really be protected from the radiation effect by the new radiation standard.

The MEXT has set 20mSv/y as the upper limit of radiation levels for school children on April 19. It states that this maximum level of 20mSv/y is based on the recommendation Pub.109 by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) that recommended a tentative safety standard within a band of 1 to 20 mSv/y as reference levels in “Post Emergency Situation”. But this standard is set for the general public. It is not for school children. Moreover, it should be noted that the current guideline of regulation is set on 1 mSv/y. The threshold quantity of 20mSv/y is for the planned exclusion zones and also matches the annual radiation exposure dose limit for workers at nuclear plants (the 1990 Recommendation of ICRP). It is apparently very dangerous to adopt this standard to children who are the most vulnerable to radiation. Moreover, when children are exposed to radiation over many years, cumulative radiation will be considerable amount and therefore their risk to cause health damages will be substantial. If we follow the MEXT’s guideline, the lives and health of our children would never be protected.

The MEXT just set the exposure limit at 3.8 μSv/h for children using a school playground. The radiation dose on school playgrounds, however, varies greatly from place to place. The radiation level is comparably high at side ditches and puddles where rainwaters or dusts gather. Children touch soil or sand and run around school playgrounds. They cannot avoid breathing dusts flying in the air. They sometimes fall on the ground and skin their knees. Then radioactive materials would attach to their wounds. Even the air dose rate is less than 3.8 μSv/h, children would receive higher radiation through direct touch with the ground than in the air. There is also a danger of internal exposure.

For the protection of children from health damage by radiation, we strongly demand the rapid control of the nuclear plant accident and the prompt implementation of safety measures to prevent risk to children’s health, instead of repeating, “There is no immediate threat to health”.

TAKENAKA Ryuichi, President of Fukushima Prefecture Teachers’ Union

Today in Labor History—May 8

Ricardo Flores Magon (by Alberto Beltran)

May 8, 1911 – Tijuana was captured by the anarchist Magonistas, with support by IWW members, giving them control of most of Baja California is now almost entirely in their hands. They encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands, to create co-operatives and refuse the establishment of any new government. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1916 – The American Federation of Teachers was founded. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1925 - A. Philip Randolph and Milton P. Webster founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Brotherhood was the very first African-American labor union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S. corporation. (From Workday Minnesota)

May 8, 1936 –19 Japanese anarchists were imprisoned for "illegal activities.” The anarchist Tôkyô Print Workers' Union was crippled when nearly 100 of its members were arrested. Over the course of May, a further 300 anarchists were swept up in mass arrests. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1945 – Germany surrendered. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1962 – An estimated 9,000,000 Belgians participated in a ten-minute work stoppage to protest nuclear weapons. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1967 – A federal grand jury indicted Mohammed Ali for refusing to be inducted into the armed forces. He was convicted by an all-white jury on June 20th. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 8, 1979 – Police killed 23 people and wounded 70 outside the municipal cathedral of San Salvador, El Salvador. The victims were members of the Popular Revolutionary Bloc, a coalition of anti-government students, teachers, peasants & workers. (From the Daily Bleed)

Radioactive Rain Nearly 200 Times Above Safe Limit

During heavy rains two week ago, high levels of radiation were detected in rainwater on the University of California Berkeley campus. According to the Bay Citizen, the radiation levels were 181 times higher than what is considered safe for drinking water. Radiation was also detected in California milk samples, according to the LA Times.

UC Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering measured Iodine-131 levels of 20.1 Becquerels per liter on the roof of Etcheverry Hall. The federal maximum for drinking water is 0.111 Becquerels per liter. Their report can be read here. The good news is that I-131 decays rapidly, so it is unlikely that anyone received a prolonged exposure.

Today the UCB Dept of Nuclear Engineering published data showing no detectable radiation in tap water. On March 31, they detected I-131 in tap water at 0.024 Becquerels per liter, well below the safety limit. Elevated levels of I-131 were detected in milk (with a “Best if Used by” date of 4/4) that were six times the 0.111Becquerel per liter limit. However, one would have to consume 3,800 liters of this tainted milk to receive the same radiation one would receive from flying across the country.

Meltdown California: The World’s First Nuclear Accident

My students have been asking me all week about the risks of fallout from Japan’s nuclear disaster. Californians have been emptying drug stores of iodine tablets in preparation for the impending assault on their thyroids. (Hopefully they haven’t already started consuming them, as the risk of iodine overdose is far more likely). Nevertheless, the disaster in Japan is horrifying, particularly for those in the middle of it. And it is not yet over. It will be some time before we know the true extent of the damage.

While Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident to date, it was certainly not the first. Nor was the meltdown at Three Mile Island, which miraculously had relatively minimal affects on people. The first nuclear accident occurred at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL), also known as RocketDyne, in Ventura Country, California, in 1959.

According to Kim Vincent, who wrote California's Historical Nuclear Meltdown, the SSFL accident released far more radiation than Three Mile Island. The SSFL was used as a testing site for rockets and had a sodium reactor used for nuclear research during the Cold War. As such, it was fairly secretive. The details of the SSFL meltdown were essentially kept hidden from the public until UCLA researchers and few reporters tracked down the details in the afterglow of Three Mile Island’s meltdown in 1979, twenty years after the fact. Scientists and workers at the site were sworn to secrecy, one of whom never told a soul until he saw himself on a documentary about the event.

SSFL was the first U.S. commercial nuclear power plant. It was not well tested and workers were not well versed in the possible problems that could happen. On July 13^th, 1959, the reactor started to act up. Workers tried to determine the nature of the problem, but failed, and turned the reactor back on and ran it for another two weeks before discovering that 13 of 43 fuel rods had partially melted. While much smaller than the Three Mile Island reactor, SSFL is believed to have released up to 240 times more radiation than the 1979 disaster. The reason for this is that it did not have a concrete containment structure.

In 1989, the Department of Energy said that the SSFL site was still contaminated. Researchers have found increased levels of bladder cancer in the area. UCLA did a follow up report that determined that cleanup workers had cancer death rates three times higher than the general population. In 2007, the EPA declared SSFL a Superfund site.

Many workers at the site were enlisted to help clean up, including many from the rocket division who did not have any expertise in radiation containment, according to the Venture Country Star. Many were told not to wear their film badges (used to measure exposure to radiation) so they could continue helping the cleanup effort even after surpassing their radiation limits and they often wore nothing more protective than coveralls. Cleaning materials were often just dumped. They also released radioactive gas over the San Fernando Valley and did not inform the public, while the company repeatedly downplayed the event and denied there was any danger to the public.