Thanks Rob, I may contact you in the near future; azkidd, I feel your pain, please mail me at nucleartalk@msn.com with your story please. I will keep it confidential.
I am not, at this time, discussing any conversation I have had with any organization. Like Mike says, it may just fall on deaf ears, but thanks HydroDave63 for your interest. I have never backed down from a difficult situation and have reported all violations I have run across in my career. The fact they were addressed, to my liking or not, was good enough for me.
Mike, I believe I was addressing everyone reading this forum and did not say you made the comment about "all legitimate issues being addressed". I am not challenging you or anyone to a verbal duel. I know this information is difficult to believe and cuts to the core of many personal beliefs about the industry. I'm glad you have such good success in your work but you are too high up on the management ladder and no, people at my level DO NOT have your advantages. I know many contractors who laughed at me when I suggested they write a violation up. I didn't understand it then, I get it now.
Procedures are the issue as the instructions for submitting a violation document is contained therein. If procedures are ignored or circumvented and TVA allows that to happen, the system for reporting becomes mute. TVA must police their subcontractor's and not just for physical problems in the plant. Other problems can cause safety issues.
The system has to work for everyone, not just management. Management always has the advantage but the procedure is written to allow employees, like myself, to report without going through management. Shortly after I left, my coworkers were told all PER's were to go through management for review before submittal to the MRC. Naturally, this instruction was never put on paper because that would be a violation of the procedure and leave a damaging paper trail. So what's an employee to do?
Don't kid yourself, get your employer in trouble and you are marked. I knew that was a possiblity, but hey, I had the OIG, NRC, TVA Internal Investigations, and least of all Employee Concerns. Well, I thought they would be interested. There is a lot at stake when rolling one of these plants online. All subs are sweating the schedule milestones because there is money to be made or lost. Throw a wrench into making that milestone on schedule, even if you were only the messenger, and ego's get hurt and managers get angry. Unfortunately, it's the messenger that gets shot not the perp. Subs like to keep their dirty laundry in house and quiet while they figure out how to fix the gross problem and keep their bonuses at the same time.
Mike, you said it was your experience that people were fired for other reasons. No kidding, firing someone and putting on their exit papers.."They wrote a violation against us", is not a popular cause for dismissal. Nor is it legal. Is it difficult for an employee to prove? Unbelievably. Can it be done? I don't know. Like TVA Employee Concerns said to me, "Well, that investigation would take a long time." So I guess the difficulty of the task is a reason not to perform it. Or maybe there is the hope that I will simply go away and make their jobs easier.
I don't agree with the airline industry that 250 lost souls per year is an acceptable casualty percentage. I was shocked when NASA announced that the 2 foot piece of insulation that fell off the shuttle during launch would not affect flight operations. They had no evidence at that point to make such a premature announcement. But we all listened and felt relief until a few days later. I don't agree that a handful of fired nuclear plant employees who stick their necks out is OK and just a fact of life.
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