and the next day we all went to work. Ten of us climbed down a metal ladder into a subterranean corridor that runs in a full circle under the reactor silo. There we were shown a pile of thick grease which had leaked out of an overhead valve. We cleaned this up in about half an hour with four or five working and four or five watching. The rest of the day we spent shooting the breeze and pitching pennies against the corridor wall. The next day they sent us down to the new sewage treatment plant outside the gates. Trucks pulled up and dumped loads of gravel, but there was no backhoe there to spread it, so about twenty of us spent the day doing what a backhoe could have done in about an hour. Every couple of hours our foreman would pay us a visit, and far from being dismayed at our slow progress, he would drawl, “Take your time boys, we’re not in any hurry here, just take it easy.” Among us was a country-western musician who was worried about the upcoming division into day and night crews, as a night crew assignment would interfere with his music jobs. The last time our foreman came around, the musician brought up his problem. The reply was swift and final: “Well if you don’t want to work nights, maybe you better just go down the road and pick up your check,” and that was it for him. On the spot I learned that at Trojan it mattered not who you were, what you could do, or how hard you worked— just be there in the morning, keep breathing until quitting time, and keep a low profile. Hot Times On a Saturday morning we entered “containment” for the first time. The containment building “ contains” the reactor itself, and is the silo-shaped structure with the domed roof visible over the top of the turbine building from Highway 30. We all wore the bright yellow protective suits and hoods, with orange rubber gloves, and black and yellow galoshes. The only exposed part is the face from hairline to chin, and the total effect is pretty bizarre. After a time I came to realize that such uniforms breed a certain equality inside containment as nobody can tell who you are or what your job is. Unless you are familiar with a particular face, it is impossible to tell the plant superintendant or a nuclear physicist from the lowliest laborer. Containment is also the only area that is free of the many security guards scattered all over the rest of the premises, and unless someone fails to We spent all day making $15.74 an hour wandering around sweeping up. My entire output for the day yielded half a dozen cigarette butts, a few sunflower seed shells and a handful of dust. obey posted instructions, such as changing into clean boots when emerging from a particularly contaminated area, one’s presence there is never challenged. This makes containment one of the most popular places for sleeping, and it was a common sight to see yellow-clad bodies sprawled along the halls and decks of the reactor silo. Inside it was hot—the reactor still in the process of cooling off, having been shut down only 24 hours before. We were given wet Kimwipes and told to wipe down all surfaces: walls, pipes, tanks, floors, and railings, and then to put the soiled Kimwipes into big plastic trash bags. As I made my rounds I discovered a large ventilating fan sucking air out, and I stayed as close to it as I could to relieve the oppressive heat. On the way out, my moustache turned out to be “ hot” (radioactive) enough to set off the alarm on the geiger counter we were frisked with by the radiation control engineers. They told me that, possibly as a result of hanging out near the exhaust fan, I had been exposed to some radioactive gas that had leaked into the air. I was instructed to wash carefully. That particular isotope was short-lived, and shaving off my moustache was deemed unnecessary. Another fellow was not so lucky and had to have some of his hair cut off after some contaminant had dripped on his head and soaked through the cloth hood. We were advised of the importance of keeping our suits dry. We made three trips into containment during that ten-hour working day. Each time we wiped for an hour; the rest of the time was consumed in getting dressed and undressed, resting, and playing poker. It was one of the most strenuous days I was to experience at Trojan. The next day was Sunday, scheduled as a twelve hour shift paying double time. The original plan was to continue wiping things down in containment, but that program was abandoned for some reason, and we spent all dAy making $15.74 an hour wandering around with broom and dustpan sweeping up. Since the actual maintenance work hadn’t really begun yet, the big turbine room I had been assigned to was immaculately clean, and my entire output for the day yielded half a dozen cigarette butts, a few sunflower seed shells and a handful of dust. The same day’s Oregon Journal carried a full-color front page photo of the big turbine I had spent the day dusting, and a headline that read: “ PGE ASKS FOR 8% RATE HIKE.” I read the story with interest. It seemed that PGE (known among the workers at Trojan as “ Portland Generous” ) not only had to have this increase, but that it was an emergency—they had to have it right now. This meant that instead of going through regular channels they were applying directly to the Public Utilities Commissioner. (The good Commissioner later denied this request.) Cost Plus Calypso During my first week I heard a lot of stories about the work pace and the “ cost-plus" contract. Cost-plus means simply that the contractor is paid whatever it costs him to complete the work, plus an agreed-upon profit margin. Hence they could care less how many guys had nothing to do, as long as the work got done more or less according to schedule. One morning over breakfast in Rainier with a pipefitter, I was told that he and 75 other pipefitters had been on the job for two weeks at $100 a day before they were given any pipes to weld. A few seconds with a pencil and I was looking at $76,000 from Portland Generous. This fellow also confided to me that the day they asked him to work inside containment would be the day he went looking for another job. Many of the older laborers were assigned to “ fire watch,” which consists of watching a welder and standing by with a fire extinguisher in case something catches fire. Since everything at Trojan is either steel or concrete, the chance of fire is remote. In any case, most of the time the welders were only sitting around smoking cigarettes. Most people who work with their hands find it difficult, or at least uncomfortable, to sit and watch somebody else work. But to sit and watch somebody else not work does something funny to one’s sense of values and the idea of making an honest living. At least one young man I knew soon quit out of disgust and boredom and went off to look for a real job. I hadn’t been dispatched to a job all the previous winter, had been fined twice by the union for falling behind in my dues, and had eked out an existence by delivering newspapers and pumping gas. I stayed on. Workers fell into petty disputes over territory. Once I was called in to clean up some oil in a catchpan built into a machine of some kind that the millwrights had been working on. Glad to have something to do for a change, I cleaned up the oil and then began wiping up some smears of grease on the front of the machine. 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