Under capitalism, a lot of the time, highly dangerous jobs are also highly paid. Kind of a balance that the individual decides to engage with. Same idea behind getting an advanced degree in STEM or law. I think of my job by example, I’m a power plant operator at a large combined cycle plant. No fucking shot I’d be doing this if the pay wasn’t good. I’m around explosive and deadly hot shit all day.
Your personal motivations don’t represent any society, at large.
Your premise is that people only choose jobs because of the salary? I reject that premise. All information I’m aware of tells us that most people choose jobs because of aptitude, interest, skills and prestige, not because of financial concerns (given that all jobs compensate equally).
It should also be noted that communism doesn’t mean uniform pay. You need to go back to the drawing board and rephrase your question.
Also it’s absurd to suggest that capitalism rewards dangerous jobs more, when it clearly doesn’t. Your example is terrible because power generation is heavily regulated and very safe. The most dangerous jobs are extraction or harvesting jobs, and they can be high paid…but are not well paid in the most dangerous circumstances.
I agree with your sentiment but it’s absurd to tell OP that his job is “very safe”. Until you’ve seen what heavy industry is really like, I’d refrain from commenting on it. I’m an industrial electrician and I’ve worked in steel mills, foundries, factories, power plants, etc.
It can truly be the wild west out there. Operators have a tough job in often sketchy situations, heavy machinery, around nasty chemicals and fumes and just the dirtiest grime. Mills fucking suck for example. We’ve been working on the Oswego plant in upstate New York which is the largest supplier of aluminum for Ford. It burned down, twice. There was a giant ass hole in the roof from the fire and like 12 feet of water in the basement from all the fire departments spraying where all the electrical equipment is. Then when they were fixing shit, another fire happened from someone welding on the roof.
This is an extreme example, but it is insane how the world works sometimes. I was 22 working on a solar power plant out west and the maintenance guys told me everything was locked out and off. I do a dead check and find 1000v on the busbar from a row of solar panels on some shit I was just about to work on. “Oh yeah that disconnect box is broke, we don’t shut that one off” was the response.
Safety and regulation can only get you so far unfortunately. Safety is always #1 all these places say but you really gotta be on and alert and conscious of what’s going on around you at all times. Injuries can happen in an instant
I think there’s a difference between a job being dangerous and a job having statistically significant dangerous outcomes. What you seem to be describing is a job with many dangers, but you don’t provide data on if the job actually produces outcomes caused by a dangerous environment more than most jobs. Something like this provides evidence on what jobs are statistically dangerous in the US at least: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm
When you’ve visited enough industrial plants and seen the wildly ranging safety standards and practices, the aggregated statistics just aren’t very interesting.
I’ve been to a plant, a Superfund site that supplies a material strategically necessary to the US, and which will thus never be closed - that released clouds of chlorine gas daily. Staff at the neighboring plant have to literally watch for yellow clouds and fuckin run when they see them.
Paper mills? Even just their “man lifts” (thankfully going the way of the dinosaur), something like a vertical conveyor belt where you stand on this narrow pad to rapidly ascend floors - hilariously dangerous.
Any kind of metal extraction and processing with strong acids, incidents do happen. Worst I personally observed (far from the worst I’ve heard of) I got called to remotely help assess a refining plant using lots of gross acids, after an earthquake caused a plant evacuation and an unknown cloud of mixed something started building above it.
Some of the high tech processes I’ve seen are truly chilling. Like, “no one in a 100 ft radius survives at all if this stuff gets released”.
I did that work for less than 10 years. Statistics are great, but they also hide nuance like it’s their job. Anyone who has done this kind of work understands the elevated danger, though it does vary a lot from place to place (really more industry to industry).
3x more fatalities than national average. No it’s not in the top ten most dangerous, thats not equivalent to not dangerous though.
Right, see that’s good data. That’s my only point. Not saying any specific job is or isn’t dangerous, I’m just saying the commenter seemed to be confusing “job that is around dangerous stuff” with “jobs that get people hurt often”.
The OP didn’t say they were in “heavy industry” they said they were in a specific job. A job I happen to know is safe.
Not sure why you’d make an unforced error and change his job to your job. Especially when I literally said your job was among the most dangerous in my reply.
He already replied to you saying his job is dangerous. He said he’s around hot and explosive shit all day. I’ve been in power plants and that’s the example I gave that some of them are not fucking safe. We built panels for this nuke plant and the guy was telling me you can’t touch some of the handrails because you’ll get shocked .
Really don’t care about how you feel about it because I’ve seen it with my eyes.
Weird hill to die on
Yeah, I tested the logical extreme with him further down and he confirmed that chainsaws (arguably the most risky equipment to use) are not dangerous tools because few people die yearly from them. He also stated you would have to try really hard to injure yourself with a modern chainsaw. I don’t think hes left his room in awhile or has any experience with anything outside of internet arguments. I make posts like this so I can try to learn from people with more/different information from me. That’s evidenced in my post/comment history. If this is how his logic/brain work there is clearly nothing worth trying to learn from him.
It’s all good man, stay safe out there.
His job is potentially dangerous, not statistically dangerous. It’s statistically very safe. We don’t call air travel less safe because you might die more often when there’s an accident…the analogy holds here.
It’s beside the point because the most dangerous jobs aren’t well paid under capitalism, and you misunderstand communism if you believe that all jobs pay the same.
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Gonna sit here and tell me my job is very safe, alright bud. I’m beginning to research communism and other forms of rule aside from capitalism, becayse, shit isn’t working for the majority, even though it is for me. I’m starting the journey by asking questions in a community I know is populated by members of said ideology. Seems like a completely reasonable starting point. Recommend me some literature, I genuinely will read it.
I don’t think he’s taking a shitty stance in stating that your job is relatively safe. Just that there are tons of safety regulations and protections that keep your profession off of a list like this
https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm
So you’re saying not in top ten most dangerous is equivalent of being safe.
Lol… glad you got a better answer somewhere else in this discussion.
Be safe out there.
You gave me a very specific job title…one that I happen to know is statistically safe. If you have data that proves otherwise, present it.
My job has statistically low deaths because of the amount of training I have and the procedures in place, though it is still 3x high in fatalities than national average. That doesn’t make the 1800 psi steam lines, natural gas lines, high voltage busses, pipe fitting, climbing ladders/pipes fucking safe. Below is a list of associated dangers, people don’t get hurt extremely often because you need a shit load of training to do this. There are also like 40,000 TOTAL power plant operators in the entire United states. Compare that to being an accountant or computer programmer dude. https://www.osha.gov/power-generation/industry-hazards
Your job remains statistically safe for all the reasons you stated. Yes, your job has a very high proportion of fatalities vs injuries…I accounted for that.
I’m not trying to diminish you or your job. I’m just saying you’re paid well, not because it’s dangerous, but rather because you need a lot of expertise to do it and it’s more difficult for your industry to find people that fit the qualifications.
The most dangerous jobs, like the ones I listed earlier, do not tend to pay very well if “danger” is your only metric.
Getting back to the topic, under communism people who work in dangerous or high skilled jobs would be more likely to make more money…not less.
You’re not addressing any of the information I provided. An accountant makes a mistake, they hit backspace and correct it, I make a mistake, I lose a limb, am permanently disfigured or I lose my life… In rare cases I don’t even have to make a mistake, I just have to walk past an undetected steam leak the size of a pinhead. You know what superheated steam does to a human? These are undeniable hazards I have to navigate that the VAST majority of fields do not. But you’re saying because X amount of people dont die every year, my job is safe, thats an insane take.