I subscribe to a professional tower list and was expecting the show so I
watched it. I was surprised that one of the names I had seen on the list was
actually profiled. Based on what I had seen on the list, I thought the show was
fairly well done, unlike some of the puff pieces on guns or the 60-minute crap
with mike stahl and leslie what's her name.
Many years ago (I was a teeny-bopper and was DEATHLY AFRAID of heights) I
worked for a Home Siding/Remodeling Contractor and had a job at a house
requiring work on a ladder to get to the upper rows of siding. My boss told us
that if we had been working on a tower or other steeple-jack site, we would be
paid in the neighborhood of $30 to $40 an hour. The minimum wage back in the
60s was about $3 which was what I got paid for that job.
Fast forward to today mow that I absolutely LOVE heights, and now being
retired, the pay scale is barely in double digits. I verified this when, 5
years ago, I stopped near my house where they were hanging a 304 foot fower for
cell fones. He told me that if I were a ground hand, I would be paid from $10
to $12 but if I were on the tower, it would be about $14.
Talk about walking away dejected....
RoGrrr
KC8HZ
> Message: 10
> Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 09:39:41 -0700
> From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
> Subject: [TowerTalk] Cell Tower Broadcast
>
> The Front Line piece on the epidemic of deaths by cell tower workers
> aired on our local station last night. It was quite well done, and a
> devastating criticism of the cell phone companies, the middle-men
> contractors they hire to build out their systems, the sub-contractors
> hired by those middlemen, and even OSHA, which has the responsibility
> for workplace safety. Would you believe that the guys doing this
> dangerous work are out of work locals getting paid $10/hour, with
> virtually no training, no supervision, and time pressures that make safe
> climbing nearly impossible? With this sort of work environment, no
> tower-climbing professional is going to go near this work.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
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