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Workers at Chile's ALMA Telescope Strike Over Working Conditions
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?"
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.
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So would you get minimum wage technicians to operate a state-of-the-art gear like are these telescopes?
What could go wrong?
How is that cheating? I thought that is a simple demand and supply rule.
"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.
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.
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).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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
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).
Techician jobs range from about $20,000 to $35,000
For example:
https://utdirect.utexas.edu/apps/hr/jobs/nlogon/120716015331
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.
There is a bathroom. Its in this building. 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 noise tubes are provided - and strongly encouraged. Though many employees don't like using them.
Of course, you only hear SynFlood's side of things because all non-union employees are directed not comment on the ongoing strike, which is why I am posting as AC. Some of his points are valid and a real problem. The food is bad, and should be better. The 12 hour days are real, and stupid - it should be 10 for the same total pay, giving workers more time to relax, call friends/family, or take a shuttle into San Pedro. But some of his points are not valid, and misrepresenting the issue makes solving the real problems that much harder.
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!)
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)
...or could just mean that you can't abide some asshole exploiting your fellow man, and you have the courage to stay and fight.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.