Upcoming Tower Climber PBS Frontline story

[TomZ]

From the story
Communication Tower Deaths

Tower climbing, an obscure field with no more than 10,000 workers, has a death rate roughly 10 times that of construction. In the last nine years, nearly 100 tower climbers have been killed on the job. More than half of them were working on cell sites.

http://www.propublica.org/article/cell-tower-fatalities?google_editors_picks=true

[ChiefEngineer]

     The problem of subcontractors has always been around.  This is a great business, as shown. 

     At Rushville, Indiana a sub company showed up to install an FM antenna. They began strapping a winch to the bed of a truck through a rusty bed and it's holes. I asked the operator if he knew how to operate this, having heard of a death in the Carolinas a week before because the operator didn't know how to brake the winch. I got the greatest cussing of my life.  I told the manager (who hired the crew as they were the cheapest)  he would be in charge of the next days project.

     Raising the antenna a worker rode the line (going to 500 feet) then at 450 feet another worker jumped on.  The two workers and antenna started to fall as the winch couldn't handle the weight.  The man on the winch couldn't brake it. At this point I defer to the idiot supervisor who knows how to operate this. at 200 feet (about) the new single bay FM antenna became a batarang and was slung into the tower, stopping the workers and breaking ribs. They threw this great winch, their belts, and tools down and left, never to return. I got to see a Harris roto tiller copy bent into the tower, left dangling without being attached.

     I watched the video and saw the company who did the work (Tower Services) blamed for a death in Kentucky.  They have several names they use.

     I am seeing the deaths higher for AT&T yet Verizon was also doing a build out.  The death near Haubstadt was described by some tower workers as one man doing stupid things. He had marijuana in his system.  Did this contribute to his death?  He was making $10 an hour. The Wal Mart job might have saved his life.

     The trickle down of money to workers is a big contributor to the whole process. How many teeth did you see in the workers still working?  The comment in the piece about my pizza guy now climbing towers is true.  New hires rising to supervisors quickly is very true.  The guy in Michigan is very non typical of most climbers.

     We have seen drunken crews show up to work for years.  I have sent several away when they couldn't stand up. One reported he had 27 dui charges. I have gotten calls from the local police department with a tower crew leader wanting bail money.

     My favorite climber is Charlie Barber.  He is 76.  He is alert, aware, and alive. He will not work if it is too windy. He refuses to do the stupid acts.  Mike Wolford Does a lot of work here too, and he is at least 54. He always likes do be a live chicken rather than a dead duck.

     We saw a big jump in problems with DTV build outs.  In radio we don't see the big changes. Most cell towers are shorter than broadcast towers.  The height isn't as problematic as the sudden stop at ground level.

     

[nocomradio]

 Sounds indicative of the problems that a lot of trade industries are suffering these days. There was such a trend to send everyone to college in the past 20 years or so that it left a huge void in trained tradespeople. No one wanted to go into work that was seen as hard, dirty and difficult. Because of this, the ones left to do the work are subpar, being hastily put on the job sites and told to figure it out as you go in many cases and sometimes that is the only thing that is available.

 Add to this, that often times too, management looks strictly at the bottom line in terms of how much outlay to allocate for services such as those mentioned above. Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for. There are experienced and good people in their fields, but many times they are highly sought after and quite busy because of their experience and abilities.

 In the case of tower climbers, mistakes, or inexperience mean serious injury and expensive damage at the least and death at the worst. That isn't a place to have people who don't know or care what they are doing, for sure.

[BarryATL]

To be blunt, who wants to be a tradesman (tower climber) when the sub-sub-sub contractor only pays a little over $10 an hour?  I was shocked at the pay rate mentioned in the show.

[OKCRadioGuy]

Exactly.  All they'll get are "stupid people" when they pay that little for dangerous work.  Irronically the cost of insurance probably contributes to the low pay.  They pay out so much for all the potential losses that the bosses of these companies are inclined to pay people poorly.  I see this as a very terrible cycle downhill.  Somehow the bad companies that choose the cheap option and kill people need to be weeded out.  Insurance probably would be the best way to do that. They need to get more involved with ensuring someone with some experience is "certified" similar to our SBE certs before they'll insure.  When something bad happens on the job, the certified guy looses that certification.  Simple, really.

[OKCRadioGuy]

Second verse of that would be that they'd have to pay the certified guy what he's worth, not what they want to pay him.

[BobOnTheJob]

My favorite climber is Charlie Barber.  He is 76.  He is alert, aware, and alive. He will not work if it is too windy. He refuses to do the stupid acts.  Mike Wolford Does a lot of work here too, and he is at least 54. He always likes do be a live chicken rather than a dead duck.

While we're speaking of good climbers (and I concur with Chief's assessment of the above names), we also have a local boy in our Indiana midst in Chuck Weber. From what I can tell, he doesn't drink at all, and these qualifications are factual : former Marine, actually shows up 15 minutes ahead of when he says he will, almost never cancels on you and his most stellar quality of all is that he's the Chief Engineer at a cluster of stations including 50KW blowtorches WKKG and WWWY...the bottom line is that he actually knows what the equipment on the tower does and what it should look/act like. This guy is golden in my book. He's 45...I'm 59. My prayer is that he is still doing what he does at least as long as I'm doing what I am. He will quit climbing someday, but it won't be the result of some stupid stunt he pulled...not in his DNA.

[nocomradio]

Second verse of that would be that they'd have to pay the certified guy what he's worth, not what they want to pay him.

 Agreed there. This will require a couple of things though:

 One, the experts to get organized enough to require certification to even be allowed on a tower site. Two make it very clear that if the experts have to go in and work over the cut-rate companies mess, it will cost double. No specialized field should let the customer dictate what they are going to pay.

[littlejohn]

We did a tower extension and antenna install recently (two ERIs).  SBS out of Alabaster, AL got the contract.  I've used these guys for many years.  They're safe and do a good job.  They aren't cheap, but they are inexpensive. 

[rew]

 I have used Southern Broadcast Service  out of Alabaster (Pelham) Alabama. Good crew to work with. Safe and a good attitude.