Finding Silkwood

Finding Silkwood is a biographical story about the author. After Mr. McMullen returned from Vietnam (1971-1973) and after four years of going to college in California and completing his bachelor's degree, he moved to northern Utah.Mr. McMullen became absolutely in love with hiking in southern Utah and decided to enroll at a university in northern Utah to get his master's in science. After one year, when he ran out of money, with loads of bills from California, he got a job at a uranium mill in Wyoming and worked there for two years.Mr. McMullen's initial intent for his master's thesis was on formal logic. But after he got the job at the uranium mill as a laborer and after two months of living outside in the local transient park, which new workers used all the time, he drove back to Utah, an eight-hour drive, to the university, to meet and update the university thesis committee. His master's thesis focus then changed totally.The thesis committee totally knew about Karen Silkwood. The court case concerning her death was, at that time, moving through the court, and lots of information regarding her exposure to radioactive plutonium in the processing mill were available. After his discussions with the thesis committee on conducting a participant observation study regarding workers' uranium radiation exposure and the response, he decided to change the thesis topic.The story is about his time working at the uranium mill, living locally in Wyoming, and dealing with uranium radiation exposure in the work environment, as well as collecting the information he needed for the study and his thesis.Karen Silkwood had become his hero and gave him lots of nerve and strength to conduct the participant observation study. How can this work situation be improved? How can these radiation exposure situations be acceptable to some of the workers, especially the supervisors and uranium mill owners?