Workers at Chile's ALMA Telescope Strike Over Working Conditions 274
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Deutsche Welle: "'Employees at the world's largest radio telescope have gone on strike after failing to reach agreement over pay and conditions. Workers say they are not sufficiently compensated for isolation and high altitude.' The strike started on Thursday, and the telescope is currently not operating. Although the project's budget is $1.1 billion, an ALMA technician earns less than $2,000 per month. How does this compare with people working at observatories in the U.S., Japan, or the European Union?"
Apples to Apples. (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys are earning $2,000 p/m more than ALMA workers who are working in US, Japan or the EU.
Lets get a comparison of wages earned by locals doing similar skilled jobs.
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:5, Insightful)
Go find work elsewhere then.
Striking just shows at they can't. Otherwise they already would have.
The flip side is that without unions and the real threat of losses caused by strikes, the next employer in that line of work will merely do the exact same thing. Consider the way that the major cell networks all charge similar rates (including overcharging in many cases for texting) when they are ostensibly competing with each other for customers. If it's not actual collusion it's similar in effect because it's based on a "market rate" which is merely a look at what everyone else is doing.
Now maybe other employers should do the same thing, I'm not giving an opinion there (for those reactive types who can't plainly see that I didn't), just that such an effect is something to consider.
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T-mobile has an unlimited no-contract voice, text, and data plan for $35/month. Only 2G speeds unless you pay extra, but depending on usage that's comparable/better than AT&T's. I think Virgin Mobile has something similar as well, but their coverage appears to be even worse that AT&T's
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Someone needs to take some logic courses. And then some courses on capitalism. BTW, you pay for your text messages? Really?
That's a classic non-argument. Try making a point.
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:4)
"Otherwise they already would have."
If you think that work is about nothing more than earning money, you're not just an idiot, but someone I feel sorry for.
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:2)
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Yes, but being on strike over wages doesn't necessarily mean you can't find another job, possibly with better pay/conditions. It means that you are willing to work *there* (experience/enjoyment/loyalty), but only under better pay/conditions.
Re:Solidarity (Score:4, Insightful)
...or could just mean that you can't abide some asshole exploiting your fellow man, and you have the courage to stay and fight.
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:4, Informative)
Don't know how it works where you come from, but in civilised countries, striking is just a last resort in negotiation - it doesn't "alienate" you, and management can't suddenly pretend you don't exist.
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:5, Interesting)
No - striking shows the employer that the employees will not work under the terms set forth, but wouldn't mind doing the work if they could come to terms. It's a lighter version of finding a new job - and a rather more appropriate response in many cases.
Now, the employer can respond in a number of ways. Just to name a few; She can fire the employees if she thinks that the pay is adequete to attract new employees, she can wait the employees out, or she can enter negotiations. You know - just like any other free market where people are negotiating prices and conditions.
(On that note: I really don't get why some Americans are so much in favor of a free market when it concerns goods, but very much against it when it's labor.)
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Americans aren't generally in favour of a free market. They're under the yoke of protestant work ethic, which is servitude with an essentially religious basis.
A free market would see workers refusing to work with non-union workers, and unions regularly campaigning for higher wages until there was a more equitable distribution of wealth. But the laws in many states/countries have made this illegal or practically impossible.
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I'm non-union and involved in installing new machines in a union business. They require us to hire union people to do the installation while we are restricted to supervision. So they do indeed do that.
As for higher wages across the board? Unions these days are pretty self-serving, even amongst their own. Thus you get two-tier wage levels or even three or four tiers in some cases. The older guys won't vote in lowering their $30/hr operator wages, so they cut more from the new guys who aren't voting yet
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think in US it is not the unions that can help. These are incompetent, corrupt bureaucrats that are charge with tasks that overwhelm them.
Some unions, yes. One I was in at one job was in bed with management and worse than useless, but most are worth far more than the union dues.
Unless your union sucks the union leaders are democratically elected by the union members, and you vote on everything they do, including whether to accept a contract, whether to strike, etc.
If your union sucks it's your own fault.
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The US is so far from Sweden in this regard that any comparisons are pointless. Neither I, nor I suspect any other posters here, know about the situation in Chile.
Re: Apples to Apples. (Score:4)
(On that note: I really don't get why some Americans are so much in favor of a free market when it concerns goods, but very much against it when it's labor.)
The idea sadly is like this: when government and corporations exercise market power, that's the free market. When workers or average customers exercise market power, it's hippy pinko communism.
The fact is, an employer and an employee inherently have competing interests. Negotiating is a perfectly valid way to resolve competing interests by seeking a middle ground acceptable to both.
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Ah, yes, the famous "You need to be / have done [insert whatever area of interest here] to be allowed to give a meaningful statement!" argument.
By that yardstick, one must be a thief to be allowed to judge over thieves, be a taxi driver to say anything regarding taxi drivers or be a Christian to be allowed to discuss the Bible.
Or where [i]else[/i] do you want to take this vein of discussion? Because I can't see it going anywhere else. "No judgement", my ass.
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Someone must have missed the part where I specifically state:
Please don't read judgement into that question. It is simply something I always wonder when I hear statements like yours.
Oh, no, you state you did read that, and just can't figure out what it means. You think you have the only valid viewpoint in this matter, so anyone else who doesn't immediately agree with yours is not only wrong, but subversive and deceitful as well. Gee, I've never come across your kind in these forums. (That last sentence is sarcasm, in case your view is too narrow to recognize it.)
As for causality, for all we know, he owns a business with 20 em
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Maybe you should read my last sentence again to see that I actually didn't miss it. And he has a "deeper grasp" on the situation for pointing out the basic fact that employers and employees have competing interests? If that is what amounts to a "deeper grasp" around here in your eyes then I've got a castle in Slovania to sell to you.
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It's also not a free market if the owners of a company have a magical, state created and enforced, way to escape their liabilities. It's called a "corporation".
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If Chilean labor law actually permits the employer to fire strikers and provides protection against a mob assaulting any new employees, then bravo for Chile. In America, you'd be sued into oblivion, your factory surrounded by a mob, and any scabs assaulted on their way to work, and the police wouldn't lift a finger.
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Mining industry needs these guys (Score:3)
Go find work elsewhere then.
Striking just shows at they can't. Otherwise they already would have.
I've worked in high-altitude mines in northern Chile and suggest that the working conditions are similar, but the pay is better in mining. There is a large pool of skilled and semi-skilled people who work in the high altitude mines (Collahuasi, Quebrada Blanca, Pascua Lama, Los Bronces, Andina, El Teniente just to name a few) that are the same labour pool that the telescopes are competing for.
The demand for skilled people in mining is driving up wages in Chile. Since these telescopes are competing for the
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Hm... that might be a little generous. In Canada a typical grad student makes around $20000 a year. More if you've got a good scholarship, but most don't. I had heard that the US was similar, or a little worse. Oh yeah, and you have to pay tuition out of that, so it's really more like $15000.
My 3 least favorite things in one sentence (Score:3, Interesting)
Although the project's budget is $1.1 billion, an ALMA technician earns less than $2.000 per month.
1) Project budget is $1.1 billion. Sure, but over how many years? 1, 5, 10? Comparing a large number over many years to a monthly rate is disingenuous.
2) $2.000. WTF? Only some few european countries still use "." as a thousands separator instead of ",". This is an english language website, use english locale settings because to everyone else, that reads as $2.00 a month, which obviously has to be wrong.
3) Where does the $2000 a month figure come from anyway? It isn't in tfa. Citation needed.
And yes, I'm grumpy, I'm working because I have a major deadline next week.
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english is a european language.
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English started as a European language. However they've bastardized it over there, while we Americans have preserved its integrity (not far from the truth - American English is closer to the common language of the Colonial Era than British English).
Re:My 3 least favorite things in one sentence (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, I work for ALMA and I'm part of the workers union , but i'm speaking for myself.
the budget is 1.5 billion already spent on the project , each antenna with all its equipment cost US$10 million, and there are 64 of them,and then you have to add all the building, devices, software licenses, computers, network equipment and other things that the project needs, so you can go easily to one billion only on that , which is already in place.
about two, yes english site, agree use , instead of . for thousand separator ;)
three, 2,000 USD is the average, some workers make less than 1,000 USD per month, working 12 hours a day on 8 days working, 6 days off shift, the average is 2,000 USD and top paid workers are getting nearly 6,000 USD per month.
Another important point, we are on strike NOT for the money, we are on strike because the company that have our contracts is changing condition and removing some benefits , maybe U.S. laws permit that, but ALMA is located in Chile, and laws here are different, also ALMA is abusing of its special diplomatic condition to disallow inspection by the agency in charge of verify working conditions (Inspeccion del Trabajo de Chile).
Also to clarify, most of the work is performed at 5,000msn (16,000 ft over sea level), with tempetures as low as -10 celcius (14 fahrenheit) with relative humidity of 5% and winds of 10 m/s (32feet/s).
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Thank you for the information SynFlood. Mind if I ask a few questions?
1. What type of jobs are these? Someone above mentioned "minimum wage technician job", but I don't think he knows what jobs are actually in dispute here. Are these advanced jobs maintaining the equipment, or manual labor wrench turning and meter reading jobs?
2. What is the comparable pay scale of similar jobs in other areas in Chile? Obviously there needs to be a bonus for working up there, freezing you ass off, but we don't know what the
Canada (Score:2)
Obviously there needs to be a bonus for working up there, freezing you ass off
There does? Last time I checked I didn't get a winter bonus up here in Canada where the temperatures hit -40C. -10C for a _high_ counts as heat wave in January. Even the schools will send the kids out for break times as long as the temperature is above -23C. Except for the altitude those conditions are mild compared to a typical Canadian winter and the Alberta minimum wage is only C$1,854/month with an undoubtedly higher cost of living.
As you point out more details are needed to do a fair comparison but
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Did you grow up there? Or did you move from someplace warmer? I grew up in Michigan where it snows half the year, but not quite as cold as Canada is. I moved to a warmer place a couple decades ago, and don't plan to ever move back. There would have to be a huge bonus for me to work in a cold area again.
Most of the workers at ALMA probably didn't grow up in year round freezing conditions, and so don't want to work in freezing conditions for the same rate as they could get in warmer places. So, yes, there has
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Are you working outside (or exposed to outside temperatures)? My brother (a glacier) used to go to Prince George to work outside at minus 40 because of the bonuses. Perhaps bonuses for being exposed to temperatures that'll kill you in a short time have gone away to be replaced by bonuses for the executive who lowered wages.
Re:My 3 least favorite things in one sentence (Score:5, Informative)
jobs are from mechanical workers, electric engineers, antenna operator, array operators, warehouse operators , software programmers, system administrator, dba, network eng.
about base salary, we are around 10% or 20% better paid than the same job at a santiago , for example
I'm a Chilean citizen, 80% of the workers are Chilean citizen and the rest are from US, Europe or Asia (Japan mainly)
but i would like to say that the strike is not mainly for the salary, also for the working conditions.
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Thanks for the information, SynFlood. Hope it works out well for you guys.
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Disallowing the inspection of working conditions seems like pretty bad practice. Has ALMA given a reason for why they are doing that?
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Odd. Either my spanish is far worse than I think, or your webpage says that it is about the money. [sindicatoalma.cl] Of course, your page also says it has been a year since the inauguration of the telescope when it clearly has not.
Without really understanding all the details I have no idea if the union is making reasonable or unreasonable demands. However, you really should try to communicate a clear, consistent, and factually correct message. Making small errors like getting the 1 year wrong makes everyone wonder about all
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at the beggining, of the negotiation, the money part was the one that get more publicity by the media, but there was a lot of other points, personally i'm not on strike for the salary, but for the condition , of course i will not reject if my salary is increased ;) , but the central point IMHO is the condition of work and how our employee interact with us
(i'm not part of the union directive, jus a union member, speaking for myself!)
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Another important point, we are on strike NOT for the money, we are on strike because the company that have our contracts is changing condition and removing some benefits , maybe U.S. laws permit that, but ALMA is located in Chile, and laws here are different
My U.S. employer tried the same thing, my union sued the company for breach of contract (and won).
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Thank you for the added information. The article was disengenuous if they quoted the construction budget; the operations budget is an entirely different allocation.
In the U.S. there are some protections at the Federal level (base minimum wage, worker safety, anti-discrimination); but, most of the employment laws are set at the state level. Employment regulations in California are very different from, say, Alabama, or Illinois, or compared to Virginia (where I am).
Removing benefits is not a way to kee
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Also to clarify, most of the work is performed at 5,000msn (16,000 ft over sea level)
It should also be pointed out that the threshold for long-term sustainable habitation (where your body doesn't begin to slowly waste away from oxygen-deprivation, resulting in eventual fucking death) is around 15,000' above sea level.
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yes we enforce are shitty system even on the internet. Just remember, if you are talking to someone from America then you must assume you are in america despite where you are at. Metric system might be easier and smarter, but we are Americans and well fuck you for trying to make us learn a simpler and better system.....we like are shitty systems to stay.
just like are shitty corporations, banks, healthcare system and horrible politicians.
anyways you get the point.
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, as a thousand separator? WTF, not everybody is english or american, the world does not revolve around you.
It's common courtesy. When in Rome, etc. If I post to a non-english website, I do my best to get my language, currency and date formats correct, and I expect the same when others come here. And at any rate, correcting this sort of thing in the summary is what the editors are for.
For the record, I'm neither english nor american and I don't live in either of those countries, so no, I don't think the world revolves around me.
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Only newbie even see the issues he's complaining about.
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, as a thousand separator? WTF, not everybody is english or american
What English speaking countries use "." as a thousands separator? You're writing in English. When you're in Mexico do you say "Este cervesa es two fifty" or "Este cervesa es dos y cincuenta"? (my Spanish is rusty, I hope I got that right)
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When used in the United States, such affectations are code for "I am a flaming homosexual and have the desire to fellate you".
I don't live in the United States, and even if I did, I'm also not homophobic. Your pitiful attempt at insult really says more about you than it does me.
Survival mode (Score:3)
If you were exposed in the Atacama, you would most likely be dead in less than 48 hours. TFA touches on this, but it is emphatically not a nice place to hang out.
Sometimes I, too, chafe under the terms of my peonage.
Alberta Winter (Score:2)
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You must be from southern Alberta. ;)
oh please (Score:2)
If you were exposed in the Atacama, you would most likely be dead in less than 48 hours.
I live in a major US city where the same is true for a few months out of the year. Yawn.
Cost of living under $1000 a month (Score:5, Informative)
The cost of living in Chile for american expats is under $1000 a month.
The average annual income is $11,039.
If the observatory workers are making $2000 a month, then they seem to be making the equivalent of about $90,000 in the U.S. for local goods and services- tho very little in terms of world products (like imported automobiles and air conditioners).
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just to make you guys an idea of living costs in chile
http://www.contactchile.cl/en/chile-information.php
if you look at standard budget, this is for a single person and is around US$ 1000, and most of the ALMA workers have family.
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I don't mind (tho I don't think it's realistic to think wages are going to go up rather than average out).
There will be side effects of course.
It would absolutely murder tons of retired people in those countries as the cost of living goes up by 100% and their pensions and social security programs are unchanged.
Of course, retirees in the 1st world would benefit as wages stagnated and dropped.
One correction, "Anglo-Saxon and European nations" should probably be "Anglo-Saxon and European corporations."
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I thought everyone was agreed that we want to stop employers exploiting wage disparity between nations.
Not here. The more exploitation the better off the exploited will be. And the so-called "race to the bottom" will destroy a lot of the free lunch sense of entitlement of the developed world.
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So if you want to do something different than buying local food, you can't.
Or buy local real estate, local equipment, local hires, etc. There's a lot more than food for sale in India.
To answer your question (Score:5, Informative)
Techician jobs range from about $20,000 to $35,000
For example:
https://utdirect.utexas.edu/apps/hr/jobs/nlogon/120716015331 [utexas.edu]
Re:To answer your question (Score:5, Informative)
If you see the add, they work form 8 to 5 MonFri, we work Mon to Mon 12hours a day, except first day wich is from 11 to 8 and last day wich is 8 to 3, wich is 88 hours in a week, then 6 das off, so is 44 hours a week in average? and we can't go back to our houses every night while working, because we are 1200km away from home, some even more, is a 2 hour bus trip to the nearest airport, and then 2 hous of fligh, or 24 hours in bus. so is not comparable with McDoald Observatory!
Also elevation , accoring to thir page is only 2000mts, our residence is a 2960 and the work area at 5000mts.
welcome to science (Score:2)
$2000 a month is about what the average non-PhD technician/junior scientist on a government funded basic research project makes in the United States. A junior PhD will make about twice that. Astronomy is not a particularly well funded branch of science (compared to molecular biology or nanotechnology, for example), I would expect their technicians to generally make less than average.
If you want to work in basic research (in any capacity other than PI), be prepared to live very frugally.
Minimum wage technician? (Score:5, Interesting)
So would you get minimum wage technicians to operate a state-of-the-art gear like are these telescopes?
What could go wrong?
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Right? Like Nuclear Power Plant Operators. There were, in the beginning, considered highly skilled labor in a dangerous environment. Then it became something a monkey could do, followed by... Chernobyl.
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$11.50/hour minimum wage.. That would be a great deal in the US. Still not quite as high as it should be, but much better than it is currently.
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We're discussing employment, not serfdom.
Re:Premium not enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is that cheating? I thought that is a simple demand and supply rule.
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How is that cheating? I thought that is a simple demand and supply rule.
No. The cheating part is the accepting the offer and then refusing to do the work; without advance notice. I am all well and good with interviewing with the employer, and then refusing the offer by telling the prospective employer that it's not enough -- and you'd love to work for them if they'd increase teh amount.
It's called blackmail. "I'm going to suddenly stop doing this thing that I promised to do"
Re:Premium not enough? (Score:4, Informative)
"cheat"
Not really. The only cheaters are those who lie that there is something immoral about organised labour.
All employees should unite and strike until paid enough to balance the distribution of wealth. And there's nothing employers would then be able to do about it, except turn employees into slaves.
And that's why there are so many lies told about unions.
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So, you are saying you would prefer everyone to not have a job, than for most people to have a job but with some people making a lot more money than others.
There aren't as many lies told as you think. Some are valid critiques of viewpoints similar to yours.
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That right there is one of the lies. So long as there is work to be done at even razor-thin profit margins there will be jobs available.
Basically for any business the gross income is distributed into two broad categories:
Operating costs
Overhead (rent, utilities, sunk costs, etc)
Input resources (incremental costs)
Cash reserves and forward-looking investments
Net profit distribution
Employee sala
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Quite honestly, I think you replied to the wrong post with this. Nothing you say goes against anything I said to Joining. Actually, all I really said was that people don't all think like he does. I said nothing about what I think about fair wages or corporation financing.
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I went back and re-read both posts several times to see if perhaps I misunderstood something, but I don't see it.
Joining > [name-calling of the anti-union folks] All employees should unite and strike until paid enough to balance the distribution of wealth. And there's nothing employers would then be able to do about it, except turn employees into slaves. [claim that many lies are told about unions]
You > So, you are saying you would prefer everyone to not have a job, than for most people to have a job
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Let's assume we can't touch Costs without hurting the company. That still leaves everything in the Profit section open to negotiation
ALMA is UN-funded. There is no profit. The closest thing to proft for a non-profit; is getting more donations or being a separate company paid to be a contracter for a non-profit due to close friendship or family ties with those in charge of the non-profit.
The only real profit for a company in the scientific fields, is if you get to patent something; and observatories d
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You just told one (more likely repeated one told to you). What makes you think nobody would have a job if everyone demanded a fair share of the wealth? The work would still need doing and the raw materials would still be there. There would still be a profit to be made. You're not claiming that the wealthy investors would shrug their shoulders and go plow the lawn (themselves) with tools they forge (themselves) to grow food (themselves), are you?
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Except everyone has a different idea of a just distribution of wealth.
Why are jobs with the lowest skills that are already overpaid the most likely to unionize? Why has no union ever dissolved itself after achieving its objective?
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They have so your question makes no sense.
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All employees should unite and strike until paid enough to balance the distribution of wealth.
And logically speaking.... it's in Employer's best interests to fire any employee that agrees to do work, and then starts striking, and share a strike-history blacklist with other Empoloyers; so prospective hirers know who is likely to take a job, and then without notice, suddenly refuse to work the job until something is changed to greater benefit them.
Re:Premium not enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, i invite you to work in ALMA for a month, a 16,000 ft, with temps as low as 14 F , and winds of 32m/s for $12.50 per our on 12 hour shift with out bathroom or a descent place to eat.... then we can talk
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...with out bathroom or a descent place to eat.... then we can talk
Actually, they probably do have to make a descent to find a place to eat.
Although, why is there no bathroom up there?
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There is a bathroom. Its in this building [goo.gl]. There is also a nice room in there where everyone can eat, with a microwave and hot drinks. Sack lunches are provided (free, as part of site food service), and sometimes hot food can be had. It is also common to eat a sack lunch in the cab of a car, or sometimes just the base of the antenna. Management is fine with leaving the car engine running and heater on, so heated in the car is best if you don't want to drive back to the building. Oxygen bottles with the noi
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I was corrected by a collegue which says 'we have two bathrooms, one is broken, and the other is only for 'number 1', so if you have to 'number 2' , then you are ... well i think is clear
(sorry for the wrong use of 'without' i was corrected by a colleague a few moments ago)
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No, I wasn't commenting on that. Sorry if it came across wrong. It was that you accidentally used the word "descent" in place of "decent". I thought it was funny considering the topic is working at a high elevation. That's why I said you would have to make a descent to find a decent place to eat.
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with temps as low as 14 F
You must be from California or something. Some of us call those temps "winter".
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You must be from New England or something. Some of us call those temperatures "BBQ weather."
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They're probably not working 40 hour work weeks. When you're in a remote site like that, you tend to work all the time. I would not be surprised if they're working 12 hour days, 7 days a week while they're on-site.
Let us forget that they're in Chile for a minute.
If you're going to do a comparison to American salaries, $12.50/hr buys you an assembler / fabricator, not a technician. The work "technician" does get mis-used; but, if we assume that the title is correctly applied... A technician will draw
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Its not cheating its call supply and demand and fundamental to capitalism. If there is not enough of something, it becomes more expensive. In this case its labor. Thats exactly what is going on here.
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Except that it's not really minimum wage work. Keeping a radio telescope working properly is very much skilled labor. In fact, each of those grad students necessarily already has a 4 year degree (hence the term 'graduate').
Their contention is that they have to deal with extreme isolation and altitude but get paid no more than an otherwise comparable job back on campus would pay.
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You're wearing the other teams colors. Boo! Boo!
We're all in this together (well, except maybe those at the very top of the heap), and there's plenty of idiocy in every faction, yours included. How does hurling random pointless insults at each other help further the discussion and promote good governance?
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Mighty touchy about a quip, aren't we.
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Huh, I don't remember Twain using that line with regard to politics, and it's irrelevant if he did anyway. The political landscape was not nearly so polarized in his day. Not the rhetoric, that was always vitriolic, but the actual level of conversational divisiveness between "members" of opposing parties
We live in a time when the political masterminds are leveraging the divisiveness in our society to neutralize the political power of the populace, leaving themselves free to act in their own interests with
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Given the propensity for both parties to fan the flames of tribalism in order to obscure how badly they're selling out even their core constituency? Absolutely. Bad enough they're doing it to us, to do it to each other is unconscionable.
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I hire a contractor for $2000 to fix my roof. He takes the job and begins work. Halfway through he says that $2000 is not enough for his isolation and high altitude. He stops the work, goes on strike demanding more money and prevents me from hiring another contractor. Someone care to explain how that is legal and not a breach of contract?
Things would be different if you agreed to pay him $2000 a month for general work, i.e. not a fixed price contract for a single job. In that case he could say that he will stop if you don't pay him more - and you could replace him with someone else or pay him more if you thought he was worth it.
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This comment [slashdot.org] (above) by one of the striking workers answers your question succinctly.
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I hire a contractor for $2000 to fix my roof. He takes the job and begins work. Halfway through he says that $2000 is not enough for his isolation and high altitude. He stops the work, goes on strike demanding more money and prevents me from hiring another contractor. Someone care to explain how that is legal and not a breach of contract?
Contractor's got ol' roofie fixed right up for $2k. Ah, but your balls of steel and the once banned Bay-Watch reruns have got your roof in a constant state of ill repair. So, you ring the roofologist up and say, "I've got another $2000, Doc, so fix me up."
The workers have been around your block though, and risking a blown off head over your smeggin' flat-top just isn't flyin'. They refuse to do the deadly tap dance lest better pay be coming their way too.
Now let's put you in the scientists' shoes: s
Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh look, it's the race-to-the-bottom attitude. "I'm suffering, and the solution is to make more people suffer, rather than to lift everyone up."
Meanwhile the guys at the top laugh at you as you remain divided and conquered.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Oh look, it's the race-to-the-bottom attitude. "I'm suffering, and the solution is to make more people suffer, rather than to lift everyone up."
Yeah, I hate that liberal attitude towards wealth and jobs too. "It's better if everyone had less, as long as the rich lose more."
Glad to see another enlightened /.er.
Re: (Score:2)
So they're making double what I do? In a country where that money is probably worth double than it is here in the U.S.? They need to STFU and get back to Jodie Fostering.
if you are working full time and earning only $1000 a month in the USA then you want to look for a new job. This is less than minimum wage for a 35 hour week!