In Race For Better Cell Service, Men Who Climb Towers Pay With Their Lives

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• $10 per hour to climb towers? Anyone who works for that kind of money for that kind of job has to be a drunk or stoner, someone who can't get a job anywhere else because of their habits.

  My oldest son works for a company that builds the towers these clowns climb, erecting one is much more dangerous than climbing one, and they have an exceptional safety record. Plus, he makes far more than ten bucks an hour. The old adage will hold true until the end of time, you want good people, you have to pay for good people.

  • Actually, at least in the south, a non-union job with no special training requirements, $10 an hour is a fortune. In San Antonio, for instance, most jobs are service related (touris industry) and pay minimum wage or just a touch above. This entire city works on a black market under the table who you know model. Now one can afford anything else.

• For "fiance" read "common law wife. Anyonewith 2 children in a relationship for over 7 years can hardly be termed a finance. Just saying! My nephew is VP of the ATT union in San Antonio. Trust me, Att is OBSESSED with training and safety equipment. They will fire you if you get a DUI even off the clock. Period, no questions asked. I suspect it is the same for drugs. The article tries somehow to drag Att in the mud (which is not altogther a bad idea) but clearly the problems are with the employees of the subcontractors. So put the blame where it belongs. Of COurse if they were expanding their networks that rapidly, they would have a higher percentage chance of injury or death. But the poor equipment, lack of training and the stupidity of the employees is beyond the control of ATT. Why didn't the subcontractor get fined into oblivion for this? THIS is why I am not altogether against regulation. If companies would behave themselves, and do the right thing on their own, regulation would not be needed. But they don't. And while regulation doesn't eliminate the problems, it can certainly reduce them!

• As the Old Man used ta say: "Gravity don't give a shit if you don't believe in it."

  • Gravity is Raaacccciiiisssstttt!!!

    BOOMPH!

    • BOOMPH, there it is! BOOMPH, there it is!

• Again, two lessons to be learned: 1) Stupidity can get you killed.
  2) Pay attention in physics class.

• His fiance, "Everybody in this process should be held accountable."

  Yes, including Guilford. If you have a dangerous job, don't do drugs. Obey the safety rules. Safety first has a way of getting you home at night in one piece. I ran a heavy construction crew for 2 1/2 years without a reportable accident. It was because I cared of my guys went home to their families every night. And I wouldn't allow any druggies.

  • I see by the TD the fiancee reads IHTM.com

    For her man, being in love meant never having to say, "I'm sorry for risking our life together by using druuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggsss!"

    BOOMPH!

    That was someone else's fault than his. ow dare we confront her idiocy?

    • By the same token, supervisors and company owners should take responsibility, and fire people who refuse to obey safety regulations. If a company's management won't make their men work safe, the general contractor should get rid of the company.

      People need to look out for each other on a dangerous job, watch each other's back. If somebody is not trained or equipped well enough to do the job safely, get him some training and equipment. If he's just too stupid to do it safely, (drugs come to mind), remove him. He's a liability.

• All Congress has to do is repeal gravity and the situation will remedy itself, after a dozen or so studies.

  • A person could get a good job in the current occupant's administration with a clear understanding such as you've suggested. Generally, repealing or at least regulating all the laws of physics and nature should be the purview of government wonks.

    • We are in the process of establishing a bipartisan committee to study the autopsy reports and verify climate change was not the cause of death.

• I'd heard about this sort of thing in 2007, shortly after moving south. At the time, the word was they hired anyone willing to climb and had minimal training programs in place. The money was apparently attractive enough to many people. I suppose some of em get way up there and pull out their burock pipe to really experience a high! I recall the money being better than ten bucks an hour though. Dusty old webbed brain could be wrong.

• "Of the 33 tower fatalities for which autopsy records were available, 10 showed climbers had drugs or alcohol in their systems."

  Well, thar's yer prollem right thar.

  Read the story. Careless people ignoring safety rules in place. Or high. Or both.

  But AT&T has SUCH deep pockets, huh?

• Liberals just can't stand living in a world where anyone might even risk asking, "Can you hear me nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow?"

  Booomph.