In a 2013 article, "The Disposable Man," Outside Senior Editor Grayson Schaffer wrote about Everest in much-needed, de-mythologized terms: "A Sherpa working above Base Camp on Everest is nearly 10 times more likely to die than a commercial fisherman—the profession the Center for Disease Control and Prevention rates as the most dangerous nonmilitary job in the US—and more then three and a half times as likely to perish than an infantryman during the first four years of the Iraq war. As a dice roll for someone paying to reach the summit, the dangers of climbing can perhaps be rationalized. But as a workplace safety statistic, 1.2 percent mortality is outrageous. There's no other service industry in the world that so frequently kills and maims its workers for the benefits of paying clients."
Put into the context of the debate around sweatshop labour I'd expect Everest Sherpas to come out looking quite shabbily treated by western guiding companies (and not forgetting by their own government).
Thanks Pete, I fully understand the point being made.These would, to me, be a more realistic comparison than the health & safety governed US fishing trade to which the comparison is being made.
Quote from: petejh on April 25, 2014, 05:23:42 pmPut into the context of the debate around sweatshop labour I'd expect Everest Sherpas to come out looking quite shabbily treated by western guiding companies (and not forgetting by their own government). Are you serious? There's a debate to be had about whether the Khumbu Icefall has become too dangerous to justify anyone working in it. But the Sherpas take home is about 30% of the income from an Everest exped. They earn up to US$8,000 on Everest in the spring, then a further US$2,000 - US$4,000 in the autumn season. So all in all over 20 x the national average income in Nepal. Your average UK 'guide' probably earns around £30K a year. The Sherpas can afford to live in Kathmandu and send their children to private school, which is the reason why they are working in the trekking/mountaineering 'industry'. How else do you make the leap from subsistence farmer to getting a university education? I know people who were commercial porters who now lead treks and expeditions and have managed to send their children to university in the UK. Ask them whether they feel exploited by guiding companies. Would it be OK if none of the Western companies operated on Everest any longer, just Nepalese owned companies? But they still employed Sherpas to do the same dangerous work?
I just thought the comparison with US jobs made sense, in the context of it being made by a US editor for a US publication. I didn't think much more about it than that. I'm sure he could have cherry picked other jobs in other parts of the world but the target readership wouldn't know much about them.
Quote from: petejh on April 29, 2014, 01:22:13 pmI just thought the comparison with US jobs made sense, in the context of it being made by a US editor for a US publication. I didn't think much more about it than that. I'm sure he could have cherry picked other jobs in other parts of the world but the target readership wouldn't know much about them.I don't think there is ever anything wrong with widening people's knowledge/experience and that its better to do so than to remain insular. Conjecture but I would expect Alpinist readers (who are not exclusively US based) are likely to be quite widely travelled.
After the tragedy on 18 April, it is tempting to come up with new rules and regulations. These will not help unless we are willing to turn the whole Everest-pyramid upside down, and put the Sherpas and other locals on the top of it. Not as ‘The Real Heroes’, but as workers with the same rights as other workers.The formal rights of the Sherpas and the general way they are led and treated on climbing expeditions, is – with a few exceptions – like how bosses used to treat their employees in the first years after the Industrial Revolution: everything is for the benefit and the interest of the owner.Every expedition leader (including myself) have made decisions for the progress or profit of the expedition. They give bonuses for more loads, fixed ropes and high altitude metres climbed. But I haven’t yet seen an expedition leader rewarding a Sherpa for saying: “Sorry, Sir, it’s not the time to go up now, I have a really bad feeling about this.”
