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4 August, 2005ICEM news release No. 26/2000
Chernobyl nuclear power station is to close before the end of this year, the Ukrainian government confirmed yesterday.
Only one reactor is currently operating at Chernobyl, which was the site of the world's worst-ever nuclear accident when another reactor exploded in 1986.
But now that Chernobyl really is to close, what about the workers?
The station's workforce has totalled around 6,500 people in recent years. At least 5,000 other jobs depend on them - mainly in Slavutich, the town built to house the nuclear workers and their families after they were moved out of the irradiated zone around the plant. And in today's Ukraine, good jobs are very hard to find.
Since 1996, the Chernobyl workers' union and its international federation have been pressing for a "social plan" that would help to avert job losses in the case of closure. That lobbying has now been stepped up.
Yesterday, the Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Vitali Gajduk met Alexander Yurkin and Andre Mrost in Kiev to discuss the issue.
Yurkin is the President of the Ukraine Atom Trade Union (ATU). He is also Vice-President of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the ATU is affiliated at the global level. Mrost is the ICEM's coordinator in the region.
They explained the ATU/ICEM campaign to the deputy minister, who fully backed the unions' action. The Ukrainian government has now given its Fuel and Energy Ministry six months to draw up a programme of social guarantees for Chernobyl and Slavutich.
But this begs the multi-million dollar question. Who will pay for the social safety net?
In fact, a comprehensive draft social plan already exists.
The commitment to close Chernobyl by the year 2000 dates back to the Ottawa memorandum signed in 1995 by Ukraine, the G-7 leading industrialised countries and the European Union. This agreement specifically recognised "the implications of the closure of the Chernobyl plant for the workers and their families." It promised that "the European Commission and the Government of the United States will assist the Government of Ukraine to develop an Action Plan for addressing the social impacts of the closure of Chernobyl."
The ICEM and the ATU followed through in 1996 with a world conference of nuclear workers' unions, held in Kiev. The early closure of Chernobyl could be envisaged only if the social issues were properly tackled, the Kiev conference pointed out. In particular, it called for a full "social plan", including the creation of alternative employment for workers in Chernobyl and Slavutich.
A detailed draft social action programme was drawn up the following year by a joint Ukrainian-EU-US working group that included trade union experts. The draft plan provides for retraining and other adjustment measures for the workers. It also entails the promotion of new small and medium-scale industries in Slavutich, notably in the field of energy efficiency and conservation.
Under the 1995 Ottawa memorandum, western commitments to fund the Chernobyl closure included 4 million US dollars for social measures. As the nuclear unions' Kiev conference pointed out in 1996, this pledge is wholly inadequate. Today, an effective social plan for Chernobyl and Slavutich would cost between 50 million and 100 million dollars.
Which is why the ICEM and its affiliated unions are now pressing the G-7 governments, the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to finance the social package in full.
For other aspects of the Chernobyl closure, money is no object. Yesterday's confirmation of the shut-down came just days after western donors had pledged an extra 300 million dollars for the building of a new shell to seal off the Chernobyl reactors. Their total commitment to that project alone is now 700 million dollars. A further 175 million dollars' worth of western aid could go towards paying for new Ukrainian nuclear plants to replace Chernobyl - although some western governments would prefer to finance stations fired by coal, lignite or gas.
All of which puts into perspective the sums needed for a decent social plan.
And there are good reasons for funding a social safety net.
The safe operation, shutdown and decommissioning of Chernobyl depends first and foremost on the skill and concentration of its workers. They have been under great psychological pressure recently, due both to uncertainties over their future and to a problem of unpaid wages that has only just been resolved.
Then there is the world's moral debt to the Chernobyl workers. The "liquidators", who went in just after the 1986 disaster to limit the spread of radiation, included workers from the plant. Some paid the price of their heroism. They contracted diseases linked to radiation, and in some cases they may have incurred hereditary damage.
Not least, the lessons learned from a Chernobyl social plan could be of great value to the nuclear industry everywhere.
As the unions' Kiev conference pointed out in 1996, "worldwide, over two hundred other nuclear reactors are scheduled for decommissioning by 2010. Chernobyl is the first challenge - not the last."
Only one reactor is currently operating at Chernobyl, which was the site of the world's worst-ever nuclear accident when another reactor exploded in 1986.
But now that Chernobyl really is to close, what about the workers?
The station's workforce has totalled around 6,500 people in recent years. At least 5,000 other jobs depend on them - mainly in Slavutich, the town built to house the nuclear workers and their families after they were moved out of the irradiated zone around the plant. And in today's Ukraine, good jobs are very hard to find.
Since 1996, the Chernobyl workers' union and its international federation have been pressing for a "social plan" that would help to avert job losses in the case of closure. That lobbying has now been stepped up.
Yesterday, the Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Vitali Gajduk met Alexander Yurkin and Andre Mrost in Kiev to discuss the issue.
Yurkin is the President of the Ukraine Atom Trade Union (ATU). He is also Vice-President of the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), to which the ATU is affiliated at the global level. Mrost is the ICEM's coordinator in the region.
They explained the ATU/ICEM campaign to the deputy minister, who fully backed the unions' action. The Ukrainian government has now given its Fuel and Energy Ministry six months to draw up a programme of social guarantees for Chernobyl and Slavutich.
But this begs the multi-million dollar question. Who will pay for the social safety net?
In fact, a comprehensive draft social plan already exists.
The commitment to close Chernobyl by the year 2000 dates back to the Ottawa memorandum signed in 1995 by Ukraine, the G-7 leading industrialised countries and the European Union. This agreement specifically recognised "the implications of the closure of the Chernobyl plant for the workers and their families." It promised that "the European Commission and the Government of the United States will assist the Government of Ukraine to develop an Action Plan for addressing the social impacts of the closure of Chernobyl."
The ICEM and the ATU followed through in 1996 with a world conference of nuclear workers' unions, held in Kiev. The early closure of Chernobyl could be envisaged only if the social issues were properly tackled, the Kiev conference pointed out. In particular, it called for a full "social plan", including the creation of alternative employment for workers in Chernobyl and Slavutich.
A detailed draft social action programme was drawn up the following year by a joint Ukrainian-EU-US working group that included trade union experts. The draft plan provides for retraining and other adjustment measures for the workers. It also entails the promotion of new small and medium-scale industries in Slavutich, notably in the field of energy efficiency and conservation.
Under the 1995 Ottawa memorandum, western commitments to fund the Chernobyl closure included 4 million US dollars for social measures. As the nuclear unions' Kiev conference pointed out in 1996, this pledge is wholly inadequate. Today, an effective social plan for Chernobyl and Slavutich would cost between 50 million and 100 million dollars.
Which is why the ICEM and its affiliated unions are now pressing the G-7 governments, the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to finance the social package in full.
For other aspects of the Chernobyl closure, money is no object. Yesterday's confirmation of the shut-down came just days after western donors had pledged an extra 300 million dollars for the building of a new shell to seal off the Chernobyl reactors. Their total commitment to that project alone is now 700 million dollars. A further 175 million dollars' worth of western aid could go towards paying for new Ukrainian nuclear plants to replace Chernobyl - although some western governments would prefer to finance stations fired by coal, lignite or gas.
All of which puts into perspective the sums needed for a decent social plan.
And there are good reasons for funding a social safety net.
The safe operation, shutdown and decommissioning of Chernobyl depends first and foremost on the skill and concentration of its workers. They have been under great psychological pressure recently, due both to uncertainties over their future and to a problem of unpaid wages that has only just been resolved.
Then there is the world's moral debt to the Chernobyl workers. The "liquidators", who went in just after the 1986 disaster to limit the spread of radiation, included workers from the plant. Some paid the price of their heroism. They contracted diseases linked to radiation, and in some cases they may have incurred hereditary damage.
Not least, the lessons learned from a Chernobyl social plan could be of great value to the nuclear industry everywhere.
As the unions' Kiev conference pointed out in 1996, "worldwide, over two hundred other nuclear reactors are scheduled for decommissioning by 2010. Chernobyl is the first challenge - not the last."