Remembering Karen Silkwood, Union Martyr

[Octafish]

She wanted to bust Kerr-McGee Company for exposing unaware workers to plutonium contamination.
On the way to talking to the press, she died. Of course, her briefcase and documents were missing.

Remembering Karen Silkwood, Union Martyr

We must remember her story, because it is a symbol of the ... courage of millions of trade unionists who have fought, and still fight, to defend the health, safety and security of their fellow workers."

A union activist, alarmed by the serious health risks in a nuclear fuels production plant, investigates the dangers. She uncovers a frightening cover-up by the company. Her home is mysteriously contaminated with radioactive plutonium.

While taking revealing documents to a confidential meeting with a union staff representative and an investigative reporter, she’s killed in an auto accident under highly suspicious circumstances.

That, in brief, is the story of Karen Silkwood, still remembered as a union martyr 25 years after her death. Silkwood, an employee of the Kerr McGee Company’s Cimarron plutonium plant in Crescent, Okla., was a member of Local 5-283 of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_0100_slkwd.html

More details from the human side:

Remembering the Killing of Karen Silkwood

August 11, 2009 in Capitalism, Environmental Justice, Nuclear, Organizing

After watching the brilliantly-acted and courageous film Silkwood (1983, starring Meryl Streep), I learned the compelling story of Karen Silkwood and her death, which has seemingly been forgotten by America. Karen, only 28, was a union activist working in a Kerr-McGee nuclear power plant in Oklahoma, who died in a suspicious car accident while on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter for a story that would have exposed the company’s dangerous and illegal mishandling of plutonium.

Karen was active in her union, calling attention to the radioactive contamination in the plant, and spent months compiling evidence to show that the company was deliberately covering up the fact that their fuel rods contained imperfections, which could put millions of lives at risk if they sparked a meltdown. The night of her death, many believe Karen was deliberately driven off the road by another car, and her family was later able to sue Kerr-McGee for $1.3 million in damages, but the company admits no wrongdoing.

The nuclear plant where Karen worked was shut down in 1975, one year after her death. When Karen’s story became public controversy, it helped display the dangers inherent to nuclear power, contributing to the amazingly successful anti-nuclear movement that has stopped construction of all new nuclear plants in the US since 1979. Thus is especially important today as some corporate lobbyists are trying to repackage nuclear power as a “clean” or “carbon-free” energy “source.” In fact, it’s none of those things.

Karen’s story is both a warning and an inspiration – that capitalism pushes companies to sometimes do terrible things to protect their profits, even if it means endangering lives, but also that brave people such as Karen Silkwood, in bringing the truth to light, can challenge us to create a better world.

CONTINUED w LINKS:

http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/08/11/remembering-the-killing-of-karen-silkwood/

Not much justice was done. Kerr-McGee lost a suit and was ordered to pay $10.5 million, but had it reduced after appeal to $5,000. Eventually, the company settled for $1.3 million. Frontline did an excellent report: The Karen Silkwood Story.

What nuclear power means to the powers that, eh, manage the planet, and to those like Karen Silkwood who labor to make this a better world for ALL:

Fukushima, Plutonium, CIA, and the BFEE: Deep Doo-Doo Four Ways to Doomsday

[Mnemosyne]

1. K&R for Karen! Never forget. Thanks Octafish! nt

[Trailrider1951]

2. K & R

Thank you for remembering her, Octafish. Her drive to do what was right and her courage in the face of an apparently murderous opposition makes her a hero in my book.

[Omaha Steve]

3. K&R!

[leftstreet]

4. DURec