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Lawyers For Mining Companies Threaten Scientific Journals
An anonymous reader writes "ScienceInsider got hold of a threatening letter that lawyers for the mining industry sent to various scientific journals (PDF) concerning data from the U.S. 'Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study.' Many occupational health researchers believe the study will show a link between diesel exhaust and cancer. A handful of scientists have commented on the letter and its implications."
ITS
Interesting the link to the to "a threatening letter that lawyers for the mining industry sent to various scientific journals " is not working. Maybe the letters have had effect?
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/DEMS%20documents.pdf
This is the right link: http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/DEMS documents.pdf
1) put lots of (mostly) men down in holes in the ground.
2) Give them powered machinery that predominately runs on diesel power.
3) Fail to properly ventilate the hole in the ground (citation: all of the major mining disasters in the US in recent memory have cited poor ventilation and air circulation).
4) Act surprised when combustion gas fumes and particulates demonstrate being bad for said men?
5) Profit!
I guess we figured out the "???" step...
I understand the importance of mining. I understand also that the direct cost of what we purchase as finished products is based in part on extraction costs of those raw materials that go into finished products, but I have a hard time believing that minor increases in extraction costs because of safety and equipment improvements would massively increase the costs of finished products, and honestly, I'd be willing to pay a little more for something if it means I'm not at least mildly culpable in killing people in order to get it.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Not to stick up for the mining companies, but the letter actually seems like it's asking publishers nicely.
Shorter mining industry: "Yeah, we've been killing people for generations. Whadda YOU gonna do about it?"
link or no link, maybe I'm going to far with this but will this have a similar affect like the tobacco industry years ago ? you know, they all worked and did everything to could to make profit even if they murdered people to do profit. (I call it murder since that industry was aware of the health problems, lots of studies and proof exists)
..brought to you by: Coal! America's power source."
That one cracks me up every time.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I wonder why we see considerably more "we need more women in science/engineering", but we don't hear much (if anything) about more women in mining.
Where's the equality police?
The lawyers aren't being egregious, they are just making people aware of ongoing litigation and court orders that might land them in the middle of something they don't want to be in the middle of if they publish. I don't think it's extortion as they don't claim they will sue if the study is published, they just warn the publication there's an ongoing issue and an injunction. Moreover, it makes it clear that it's only a 90 day restriction. Without reading the lawsuit I can't judge at all if the mining industry is being nasty and litigious to the authors or if they have a valid claim but either way warning publications to talk to counsel seems like a good idea.
Anonymous and Wikileaks please help! Peoples lives depend on results kept hidden by two gangs of crooks, and only wikileaks and/or anonymous can save peoples lives... The government sure as heck won't help the people, the crooks are actively against us... the only people who can save lives are you two. go go go
1) One bunch of crooks makes money by letting people die in mines for higher profit. Evil personified.
2) One bunch of crooks makes money by charging both authors and readers to distribute research funded by taxpayer dollars. Pointless dying intermediaries.
I would love it if both evil groups of crooks get screwed. Anyone got a link to a torrent on the pirate bay yet? Or a .onion tor link, or a i2p link, or ... note I'm not looking for links to rickrolls and goatse, only links to the genuine documents (assuming there's no false flag operation where the mining co. themselves release "massaged" data, not outside the realm of possibility)
Are there no superheros anymore? Is this just too difficult for anon and wikileaks? Come on guys, get it in gear and save some lives.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You know the drill, any increased risk of cancer = dead zone, mandatory evacuation.
It seems that this report is the subject of litigation, and there is a court order outstanding that says:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants immediately inform all recipients including journals (emphasis mine) of the above described study draft reports, not yet published, that they are prohibited from further distribution of said drafts until at least 90 days after Defendants have complied with this Order;
The "threatening" letter, which seems to be from the Plaintiffs in the action, informs the journal that the report is the subject of litigation, draws their attention to the court order, informs the journals that the Plaintiffs don't think the Defendant has yet complied with the court order and asks them to check with their legal counsel before publishing.
This isn't a standard "publish and we'll sue" letter, it's "publish and you risk contempt of court". It looks like an advisory letter rather than a direct threat.
Because mining jobs don't look fun and "empowering" on brochures.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
More right-wing anti-science.
These are the same people who are paying professional shills and con artists to lie about global warming for their own private profit. Their actions speak for themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofUZNynYXzM
less falling coal down the guild-hall than in the mine...
Maybe they could first switch all underground machinery to electricity. Then stop struggling with fire prevention technology and trying to ventilate the entire mine and instead just treat it like the hostile environment that it is by giving them breathing apparatuses. Run strong pipes (so they can't be easily crushed) with connection points every 10 ft or so and give the workers sealed breathing masks and a 1 hr or so backup oxygen tank. Run two separate lines so there is a backup. Then you can flood the mine with an inert gas like nitrogen so fires and explosions can't occur. You could even chill the air to keep the workers cooled when working in deep, hot mines.
Isn't this an obvious attempt to suppress publication of data that will likely lead to mining companies having to pay in full for the health consequences of what until now have been cost-cutting practices that only save money as long as they don't have to pay for the cancers that result? Having one judge in the Deep South who goes along with this attempt at suppressing both science and the rights of mine workers to a healthy work environment show only that our courts too are deeply corrupt - something we've known at least since Bush v. Gore. It hardly means the judge in question, or the law firm firmly on the side of evil here, deserve any respect. The journals should publish this data, aggressively, and assert First Amendment rights to do so.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
But that's just it - even if drastically improving the workers' health adds just a few cents per ton, and even if it saves a hundred times that in health care costs down the road, the market will still drive production to whoever does NOT do those things, because they'll be two cents cheaper.
People are willing to pay a little more. The key word there is little. People do not understand that a change of this magnitude will affect end price in a big way.
I wonder why we see considerably more "we need more women in science/engineering", but we don't hear much (if anything) about more women in mining.
Where's the equality police?
Most concern about under-representation is for desirable jobs. I never saw people complaining that white people are underrepresented in fast food restaurant service staff in Seattle. Why? Because it's not a desirable job, and population representation is really only of significant importance with desirable jobs.
When you have 500 applicants lined up for one job, then it's more likely that you will fill job positions statistically consistent with the population, but when you have 50 slots open per single applicant, then your job population will statistically represent those people who apply, and a lack of one particular subpopulation will usually indicate less of a "we don't hire people with trait XY" and more of a "we hire everyone who applies, but people with trait XY don't apply."
This should always raise the question of "why are people with trait XY not applying?" but the answer for undesirable jobs is easy: because the jobs are undesirable. However, for desirable jobs (like software engineer, doctor, engineer, lawyer, etc), the question becomes much harder. Supposedly, these jobs are highly desirable, so why would people with trait XY not be applying?
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Are they essentially claiming a copyright on a subset of reality?
If so, then wow. Just, wow.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sound stupid? But the idea that lawyers are the best judge of science is currently having more and more of a throttling effect on the USA. In fact, if you weigh in sociology and experimental psychology, it can be argued that scientists should have more part in law making than at present. Though the concept that people who make laws should have exact knowledge of something might adversely affect some politicians.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
When I read the summary, I thought it was some letter (maybe in the style of Jack Thompson) threatening anyone who published any research related to the lawsuit, thus attempting to create a chilling effect over any impartial researcher who might be studying the field.
Instead, it's one group in a lawsuit against another. I have no clue which side is right, but clearly neither side is impartial. Furthermore, it is overall a rather polite letter, and doesn't threaten anyone.
Most importantly, it doesn't prevent anything from being published, merely requests a 90 day waiting period before publishing anything from the parties in the lawsuit. There could be some funny business going on here, but this letter doesn't show it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You do in Australia because the wages are crazy here ($100,000 to drive a truck) and apparently female operators are gentler on the equipment.
========
CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
I am a computer science major from West Virginia. One summer I bit the bullet and took a summer job at McDonald's, and one of the guys working there quit his job in a coal mine because it was so bad he'd rather work fast food.
Every time I hear about a mining disaster, it strikes a little close to home... most of them are in my state. Virtually all the money made from it goes out of state. All of them could have been prevented, had money not been placed above improving safety or mining technology.
Greed is king.
right?
They're mostly old diesel buses that have been running continuously since the 1960s.
So if the environmentalists want to make this argument then clearly the municipalities would be liable. Of course, buses that use natural gas would be able to avoid this issue but most buses haven't switched.
I'm tired of every industry in america getting shut down for bogus reasons.
What we need from science is CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. If there's a problem, please offer a solution.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Micro and nano particulates have long been known to cause various lung problems: asbestos, smoke particles, cooking "fumes" from wood fires in Asia, silica, farm dust, etc. Living near those sources gives people more problems.
Anyone on either side of the issue has to admit the evidence is rather clear that you don't want those in your lungs and it is not a left or right issue, but just plain human health.
It is time past to fix the problems. So those who waited to do the fix will now suffer the legal bills.
Surprise? No.
only for companies dumb enough to make such a short term decision.
See, things like health care are long term decisions involved with making your business viable. Literally spending the 2 cents a ton in healthcare costs saves them probably 200k per employee in the long run (including lawsuits, health claims, etc).
Everything is known to the state of California to cause cancer. The lawyers should sue them.
Who's equipment?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It is posturing only. There is freedom to conduct research as seen fit. If I got a letter like that I would politely wipe my ass with it and return it certified mail.
I am certain this is the exact intention they had in mind when the US legal system was created and amended over the years.
Every single one of those lawyers should have to go into one of these questionably-ventilated mines to understand what is truly going on down there.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
That would depend on how many tons they produce per employee.
Have you not been paying attention? In the last 10 years or so, both the stock market and the way most companies has become very focused on short-term decisions. Long-term thinking seems to have gone away.
Now it's all about meeting your quarterly numbers so the executives can get their bonuses ... by the time any of this "future" stuff you talk about comes along, they'll have moved onto other companies and it won't be their problem anymore. They don't invest in infrastructure or R&D to make sure they'll be viable in 10 years ... they cut, slash, and tweak to make sure that they're profitable in the near term.
It also means they're leaving themselves a bunch of things which they'll never be able to properly fix, because by the time it becomes an issue they'll not be in a position to fix it. Kind of like having a baloon payment on your mortgage and ignoring that you don't have the money for it.
Sadly, the stock market has come to expect this ... if you're not growing 10% every year (which is impossible to sustain indefinitely) you're "underperforming". I find it completely unsurprising that companies are acting penny wise and pound foolish ... the incentive is to save the pennies now and look good on paper, and hope that down the road is someone else's problem.
In part, I blame the shift in management that happened when all of a sudden you had people who only had a business education, no actual experience, and no experience in the industry they're working in. It became a purely "cut costs/increase performance bonuses for the management team" mentality.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Whose, damn it.
You assume spending money on healthcare costs saves money down the road. My take is that in practice, looking for expensive healthcare problems finds expensive healthcare problems and those who pay for such healthcare don't actually save money by being proactive. For example, if an employee suddenly drops dead of a untreated preventable illness, that's a win for the insurance company. Even if the employee doesn't pick up large expenses from a preventable illness, odds are good that they would have picked up large expenses from some illness anyway.
There are some exceptions to this. I imagine insurance companies would be relatively eager for child immunizations and prenatal care, both which are low cost ways to prevent high cost problems for the insurance company.
1) put lots of (mostly) men down in holes in the ground.
2) Give them powered machinery that predominately runs on diesel power.
Actually... I believe most sub-surface mining equipment runs on electric power to lessen the emissions and remove a potential source of ignition. They still have to ventilate though because of the risk of dust and methane explosions. So even if the workers had SCUBA gear (or whatever the mining equivalent is) they would still have to deal with air circulation issues as they relate to safety. I'll also mention that while you hear about a bad mining accident every 5-10 years here... you don't hear about the thousands of mines that operate without incident.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
Not yours, sources: My aunt drove heavy equipment for 20+, not yours buddy not yours.
... need to learn their place.
They should be building what they're told, not telling people about the harm that might be caused. Especially if it gets in the way of profits.
Check your premises.
not to mention that mining is a job where there is about 500 "things" that could possibly kill a guy and i think that diesel fumes rates not even in the top 100 things.
So i would guess that unless this is all part of ensuring that enough O2 gets into the mine (which is a subset of making things "livable") its just Eco-Noise.
Mining is a job where somebody mixing grams/centimeters and ounces/inches could actually kill a buncha folks
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Have you not been paying attention? In the last 10 years or so, both the stock market and the way most companies has become very focused on short-term [greenbiz.com] decisions. Long-term thinking seems to have gone away.
it wasn't some magical point 10 years ago when things became ultra focused on the short term... it was right about the time the way dividends are taxed was changed.
Who's equipment?
I see what you did there. Got tired of "its" vs. "it's" already?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
This letter looks advisory in nature, per PhysicsPhil. But you don't have to go very far to find other things lawyers do in the hard rock mining business. The General Mining Act of 1872 still has not been changed, they pay $5 per acre and no royalties for the sites which bankrupted Superfund and generate 45% of all toxics released by all USA industry. http://www.americanpendulum.com/2011/11/06/jack-abramoff-%E2%80%98the-whole-system%E2%80%99-is-corrupt/
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), declared money as speech a while ago. Now it seems, money will also equal truth. Tell us what you want the verdict to be, and give us enough money, and we will officially declare your opinion to be the truth (backed up by law). This is what the lawyers are doing here. Scientific journals says diesel is hazardous to health. Scientists report findings, describe the research, show their data, and how to repeat the results. Lawyers come in, unhappy with the science "Can't you lab coats go play with a mouse or something?", and threaten the science journals for publishing bona-fide research papers. The governments could read the papers, as could the miners, and lawyers for the miners, and it could get expensive for the mining companies. Damn! We can't have that! SUE! Perhaps the mining companies did their own research: for every $1000 you spend on lawyers, you save $1000000 on cancer claims, retrofitting mines, etc. Just like the Ford Motor Company (FoMoCo) and the 1973 Pinto, c/w exploding gas tank, legal death-benefit bank account trust, etc. Its so much cheaper to fight and occasionally lose wrongful death claims than change the production line, fix the cars and retrofit what's on the road.
Troublingly, I find your steps show a remarkable similarity to those listed in industry whitepapers on implementing an IT department.
Max Kennerly, Esq.
"While I think they over-reached here, and should not have made clear in the letter if they were threatening action or not — and should have mentioned that the District Court’s Order was stayed — I wouldn’t blame them entirely. They’re zealously representing their client, as they’re obligated to do. The fault primarily lies with their clients for requesting such a letter in the first place."
The clients are not required to know the law. that's why we have layers. The fault of the letter doesn't fall to them for requesting it but to the lawyers for not informing their clients of the suitability and legality of such a letter.
Because mining jobs are usually located in traditional/country/conservative/backwoods places where men provide the daily vittles and the womenfolk pluck the cows or whatever they're allowed to do there.
Uh, hazards of cutting into cables, water seepage. Low budget mining will have the workers with jackhammers, electric generators for lighting, diesel pumps. High-end mining will have electric cabling all the way down the mining tunnels, air-conditioning, remote control mining machinery.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The "them" who benefit from long-term decisions is a different bunch than the people who benefit from short-term decisions, and it's the latter people who make the decisions.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
IANAME, but, from what I know:
Some mines use electric powered equipment, but many don't. Ventilation, if designed right and maintained well, means diesel equipment can be OK. Coal mines are special cases, because of the danger of (undesired) explosions, but hard-rock mines have no danger as far as that goes.
Electrics are better in terms of maintenance, AFAIK, mean a cheaper ventilation setup, and avoid a whole category of risk for the workers, so they do seem like a very good choice.
The problem is with design and maintenance, though.
Design often suffers because the engineers involved lack a real understanding of and appreciation for the problem of ventilation.
Maintenance is a headache, because the tubing gets torn apart all the time - there's no easy way around this, given that the tubing and heavy equipment are sharing the same confined space (this is an especially dramatic example). The tubing, therefore, needs to be regularly repaired. It's the responsibility of the engineers and management to make sure that happens, but the workers bear some responsibility, too. Lack of appreciation of the danger along with bonuses paid by the tonne of ore broken mean miners can be just as willing as management to overlook safety issues.
The real key, I think, is
- good design, at the outset and as the mine grows; and
- a strong safety culture
A mine with those two characteristics - and there are a lot of them - will do fine. If either one is missing, there will be trouble. There's no getting around the fact that underground is a dangerous environment, and only a rigourous attention to safety will make mines safe. Good news, though: that has been happening.
You want to be a massively overcompensated thief with a briefcase? Fine. But the criminal and civil liability of every lie, every cost-cut resulting in a throat cut will be bound to you in perpetuity like Jacob Marley's chains. Go directly to jail; do not collect Golden Parachute.
For that to be true, mining the raw materials must represent a large portion of the final cost of a product, and filtering the exhaust of any engines used in a mine must, if done, represent a large portion of a cost of running a mine. Both of these seem pretty unlikely proposals, especially since taken together they would mean that mining companies are getting a large proportion of all money spent on industrial products yet can't afford an expense a lowly delivery service can.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Traditional Terrorists are so few and their impact so small that they do not bother many of us because we do not go into a panic over the low risk.
While lawyers can shoot a few rounds over your head without any trouble and are a REAL threat not to your life but to everything else including your quality of life. They use the terror they cause and if that does not work they can cost you a lot of money playing games with your "hired guns" who also have the same incentive - to keep working by the hour.
Legal threats or implied threats have no cost; it probably wasn't a crime for a gunslinger to shoot near somebody either! They should just put a severed horse's head on the letterhead of their notices.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The scientist they interviewed just sounds like he has a lack of experience with lawyers. He complains that the letter was "vague and threatening". Obviously, he's never dealt with lawyers before, because sending vague, threatening letters is *what they do for a living*.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
You can't just move a mine. If it's two cents more expensive, it will just cut two cents into profit. It's not like these companies are mining to break even.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
A couple of decades ago, I worked for an aluminum mining and manufacturing company (that no longer exists as such) where fractions of a penny per pound of product meant winning or losing multi-year and multi-million dollar contracts. People on both sides of the negations admitted in public that it was insane. Safety and environmental/pollution controls were technologies we sold to other companies/countries (Soviet/Russia & China though China at the time didn't seem to care about the safety stuff), but our competitors (well, really it's still ALCOA vs everybody else) seemed to not have to meet the same standards we sold technology for based on the rates of fines for violations. With the same metric, we didn't meet the standards either. So even if consumers are willing to pay a little more for a product (say, from Apple), most of the market is forced to race to the bottom of the price list...
Sorry, left out a detail: "fractions of a penny per pound of product (35.5 vs 36.1)"
If 35.5 versus 36.1 is fractions of a penny, it's fractions of a penny in something whose cost is already measured in pennies. That fraction of a penny is almost 2% and it's not obviously insane that such a figure can make a difference, especially considering that that's 2% of the total price--it's going to be a much bigger percentage of the margin.
but I have a hard time believing that minor increases in extraction costs because of safety and equipment improvements would massively increase the costs of finished products, and honestly, I'd be willing to pay a little more for something if it means I'm not at least mildly culpable in killing people in order to get it.
It really about the choice: do you prefer to pay slightly more about the products or do you prefer to pay more taxes to fund the managing of the health related implications. People dying prematurely don't consume as much and don't fund the education of their children for the benefit of the nation's future, as well.
Scientists working on a safety and security related fields apparently need a legal safe-harbor from the government and industry.
I've read many scientific papers and have found that scientists are right well more than 99% of the time. Sure, errors, mistakes, and sometimes even fraud, take place. But the courts are NOT a place that is competent of scientific fact, and as such are not qualified to make scientific judgments. But, alas, there is a way that scientific publishing corrects itself. And that is by other scientists publishing opposing papers. Then the community sorts it out based on scientific facts (not on silly rules of civil procedure).
Oh, BTW, I've attended court and read judicial rulings many times and have found that lawyers are only getting it right about 50% of the time. Scientists have you beat.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The interesting part is that Patton Boggs, the law firm that sent the letter, has a strong presence at BIO and other science trade shows (I am a biologist) drumming up business from science centric companies.
Gavin Fischer
Who's equipment?
Currently a sonic screwdriver and a bowtie.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
When my wife graduated from MIT, there was a big push by an offshore oil drilling company (don't know which one) to recruit female engineers to work on those platforms. They were not having a lot of success, but those who did go would essentially pay off their very expensive tuition in a year or two at most if they took the job.
Had the job not been so incredibly isolating around fairly rough men in addition to the dangerous conditions then it might have been easier to get women into the field. But, I think that the heightened concern for sexual assault in such an isolated environment was too much for many of these 22 year old women to risk.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
In my experience being married to an MIT grad who's in aerospace/mechanical engineering type work, the underrepresentation of women in her workplace comes in part from conflicts of parenthood and what it can do to one's career, and in part from the field already being dominated by men, causing a corporate culture that's offputting without being outright illegal toward women. Tromping around military bases for testing in godforsaken parts of the US is probably easier for men who are encouraged to be macho and to follow the example of the military even though they're really just geeks, while women, generally not encouraged to deal with the military and generally prohibited from combat roles, don't have the same sense or kinship to macho culture.
I assume that other "macho" careers also suffer from this kind of inherent condition.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Because mining jobs don't look fun and "empowering" on brochures.
Okay? And that's a problem? Because here in Canada I can make between $22 and $43/hr in mining right now just running heavy machinery. It might not be "empowering" but damn if it doesn't pay better than most jobs in the tech sector.
Om, nomnomnom...
I guess what bothers me about this is that normally the contents of the paper are justification enough to keep the lawyers away, as the paper is written by someone who's put a lot of time an research into the conclusion reached and by definition of putting it in a scientific paper, has cited sources, studies, and facts to back up the argument and ensure that no libel charge could stand.
This flies in the face of that.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm not suggesting that /. posters are in a league with Joyce.
They are not. Most /. posters can write a coherent sentence.
Putting them in a league with Joyce is an insult to /.ers.
Joyce is however a good argument for standard spelling. If you write incoherently enough English professors will read their own opinions into your work, call you a literary genius and force students to read your drivel.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I was hoping to avoid any specific answers, as I've been sent to mod-hell for advancing a feminist agenda here on Slashdot. As such, I've been sticking to more generalized questions. Like, why aren't white people working in-proportion at fast food restaurants in Seattle? (In Seattle, it's almost exclusively Hispanic people working behind the counters, in New Mexico, it's almost exclusively teenagers.)
Or cleaning out sewer systems. Seriously, it's highly unlikely that any of these undesirable jobs would ever turn down someone willing to do the job... meanwhile with desirable jobs, supposedly we should presume that everyone equally wants to be a programmer/doctor/lawyer, so why is there under-representation in their employment?
Forming it as a form of the Socratic Method ensures that I'm not shoving feminist talking points down people's throats, because if the population is distinctly biased towards men, you're far more likely to get Men's Rights Activists, and anti-feminists berating me for suggesting that they have privilege.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
The only reason for a scientific journal to delay any publication that has been approved by fellow peers is if the said publication has a poses severe ethical issues or immediate threat to society (and even then, it should be at the discretion of the reviewers and editors, not government)
I'm not aware of any Bitcoin mining company that threatens scientific journals.
Which is interesting. Was that concern justified? Was there a higher, lower or equivalent prevalence of sexual assault in that environment?
Were the victims more or less likely to be male or female?
... "why are people with trait XY not applying?"
Actually, I think it is those with trait XX that are usually misrepresented?
contents of the paper are justification enough to keep the lawyers away, as the paper is written by someone who's put a lot of time an research into the conclusion reached and by definition of putting it in a scientific paper, has cited sources, studies, and facts to back up the argument and ensure that no libel charge could stand.
And has followed ethical principles and so on. Politicization of truths are harmful to any society, even though most societies are build on those.
Drug and criminal policy, family planning and sexuality related fields seem to be so politically controversial in many countries that a global safe-harbor would be a good start. Now, if certain religious and political groups would accept the rule of law outside of their religion and ideology this would actually work.
The funny thing is that your argument is actually almost identical to a common MRA complaint.
The first thing you've got to bear in mind is that whilst these kind of jobs are dangerous and undesirable, unlike for example fast food restaurants they're also generally fairly well paid. Someone elsewhere in the thread reckons about $22-43/hour in Canada for basically semi-skilled manual labor down mines and I can easily believe that. The fact that pretty much all the laborers doing this kind of undesirable but high-paying work are male is generally reckoned to be a big contributor to the gender gap in wages, and there's absolutely no interest in fixing the underlying gender disparity because that'd mean somehow convincing women to do dangerous and dirty jobs.
Instead, we get campaigns for women to be paid the same amount for doing less nasty and dangerous work. For example, there was a big one a few years ago in my town to try and make the local council pay largely-female office cleaners the same as largely-male roadside trash collectors by claiming the pay difference was sexist. Of course, the former is a relatively safe indoor job and the latter is an incredibly dangerous one that involves working outdoors amongst traffic and operating dangerous machinery with little in the way of safeguards.
They won't, but the shareholders will be PISSED.
-
While your argument is meaningful on an aggregate level, when you break things down, the data seem to support my position.
In a 2009 study, the data show that women working in construction earn about 92.2% of what men earn, which fits fairly nicely in my guess that "undesirable" jobs will generally hire anyone, and pay them relatively the same. However, 'the four largest gender wage gaps were found in well-paying occupations such as "Physicians and surgeons" (64.2%), "securities, commodities and financial services sales agents" (64.5%), "financial managers" (66.6%), and "other business operations specialists" (66.9%).'
So, this cuts a fair amount against your argument, that the gap is only there because women aren't working in the undesirable but high-paying jobs... no, even when breaking it up into respective fields, women are statistically earning less than male counterparts. In fact, 'the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee reported that studies "always find that some portion of the wage gap is unexplained" even after controlling for measurable factors that are assumed to influence earnings.'
Of course, the former is a relatively safe indoor job and the latter is an incredibly dangerous one that involves working outdoors amongst traffic and operating dangerous machinery with little in the way of safeguards.
I expect people arguing for the equalization of the pay to downplay the safety concerns, and the people arguing against the equalization of the pay to exaggerate the safety concerns, but then, I'm a cynic...
Basically, look: it sounds nice to come up with a guess as to why the gender pay gap is not as bad as it is, and it's especially tempting as a MRA to suggest that the gap can easily be explained away by things that the statisticians never thought of... except they have thought of these things... they're not idiots.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
I think that was the OP's point...
Men are indeed overrepresented in engineering fields, for whatever reason. But, they are also overrepresented in mining, sewage treatment, and any number of less desirable jobs. And also less represented in nursing, child care, certain types of administration, etc.
Is it fair to cherry-pick?
Is it fair to cherry-pick?
When the disparity is not due to discrimination? Yes.
Undesirable job is undesirable.
It also means that they're typically not going to be making too many choices about who they're hiring, and they're generally hiring everyone who applies.
Highly desirable jobs like being a doctor though should probably more reflect the population at large, and not just the subpopulation of people willing to do the job, because again... desirable job being desirable, the population of people willing to do the job is nearly equal to the population as a whole.
So, to be clear: over-representation of one group over another in shitty jobs is that group being willing to do the shitty job, good for them; over-representation of one group over another in jobs that EVERYONE would be more than happy to do... something is likely fishy.
To point out how this works, the text you were quoting. In Seattle, Hispanics are willing to do the shitty job of being fast food drones. However, in New Mexico, adult Hispanics generally aren't willing to do the shitty job of being fast food drones, because there are plenty of other job opportunities available to them, and generally less social discrimination working against them. But now we're left with a bunch of shitty jobs that need to be filled, oh, wait, teenagers are willing to do shitty jobs for low pay, so they now become over-represented in as fast food drones. It's not that adult Hispanics won't be hired to work as a fast food drone in New Mexico, it's that the job sucks, and they have better options.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Nah, by the time "the long run" comes around all the real money is safe in off shore accounts of upper management and primary investors. By that time the lawyers fighting health claims are just draining the retirement funds of the people they are representing. Once all that money is gone the company folds and everyone goes back to blaming the government for everything.
In a 2009 study, the data show that women working in construction earn about 92.2% of what men earn, which fits fairly nicely in my guess that "undesirable" jobs will generally hire anyone, and pay them relatively the same.
They may pay them relatively the same, but very few women are actually employed in construction and apparently even fewer are actually construction workers.
I expect people arguing for the equalization of the pay to downplay the safety concerns, and the people arguing against the equalization of the pay to exaggerate the safety concerns, but then, I'm a cynic...
Don't think I managed to get any figures on safety here in the UK, but in the US roadside trash collection is somewhere between the 3rd and 8th most dangerous job in the country depending on which year's stats you use.
Also, apparently even if you just look at the job of cleaner by itself "Although women represent the largest part of employees in the cleaning sector, the figures indicate that more men suffer an occupational accident than women. This may be explained by the gender distribution of the work where men are employed more often in higher-risk cleaning activities such as industrial cleaning, refuse cleaning and window cleaning."
So, this cuts a fair amount against your argument, that the gap is only there because women aren't working in the undesirable but high-paying jobs... no, even when breaking it up into respective fields, women are statistically earning less than male counterparts.
I don't think it's the only reason but it certainly seems to be an important one. This is particularly true when we're talking specifically about the gender pay gap in blue collar and semi-skilled/unskilled work, which is kind of a big deal in some feminist circles; as I recall there's a certain amount of controversy over feminism's failure to address this. It's also used as a justification for why the fact more women than men are attending higher education isn't a problem for men.
(For what it's worth, a lot of the remaining gender pay gap - though not all - can be traced to less women entering certain industries in the past due to historic sexism.)
From your link.
The statistic does not take into account differences in experience, skill, occupation, education or hours worked, as long as it qualifies as full-time work
Full time work is 40 hours a week. All the occupations you listed are occupations where you can work upto 80 hours or more a week depending on how money hungry you are. The data only says that the women's annual income was lower not that they are necessarily paid less for equivalent work. I'm pretty sure all female doctors would be having a huge shit fit if they were paid 60% of what a man get's for the same operation.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
What is that? It looks like some hand written notes on page 1 that were picked up on the scan of the .pdf.