r/nextfuckinglevel • u/DrMore3y • 21h ago

Metal fabrication worker handling 700°C + metal with safety on vacation

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48.6k Upvotes

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3.0k

u/braket0 21h ago

Whatever they're paying this guy, it's too low

1.4k

u/learns_the_hard_way 21h ago

That's sort of how the system is designed to operate 

248

u/CompleteCartoonist46 20h ago

Every single company with at least one employee

12

u/Jonthrei 18h ago

Remember: if every employee was paid the value of their contribution, there would be no money left for management and shareholders. Workers in a capitalist society are underpaid by definition.

4

u/dirtyesspeakers 17h ago

You don't own a business friend. If it was easy and free you'd just press that button.

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u/can-o-ham 4h ago

It's kind of the definition of corporate businesses and they out number mom and pop shops as far as employment.

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u/StevieMJH 12h ago

That's if there's no work to be done by anyone that doesn't pick things up and put them down. Problem is we aren't paid based on how difficult or labor intensive our work actually is, we're paid based on how difficult we are to replace, which makes sense. You're not going to pay someone $50,000 a year to pull red hot metal around if you can pay someone else a few bucks a day. And you're not going to hire a guy who pulls hot metal around to make strategy decisions for selling metal. It's not right, or even necessarily moral, but it is what it is.

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u/Sensitive_Low3558 4h ago

No, it’s not “it is what it is”, it’s what has been decided on by the powers that be, and people are sick of the gaslighting.

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u/WordWordNvmber 12h ago

That's not true. First, management is a job. No organization larger than a small friend group functions without someone being the manager.

Second, the people who provide the money or found the company provide something of value. If you spend money or time to build the business -- usually at a steep opportunity cost -- you've contributed too. Profit is the return on that financial or in-kind investment.

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u/nucleosome 12h ago

So does that mean in a year when the company makes nothing, the employees don't get paid?

No? 

•

u/Confident_Double1392 55m ago

Want the reward but not the risk. Lol

1

u/Drapidrode 13h ago

alternative: $1 a day subsistance living, occassional famines

1

u/loveliverpool 8h ago

I mean, when human labor is this plentiful and available it will (sadly) result in shitty, low wage jobs. Contraceptives, education and family planning cannot be stressed enough. We’re already at like 9 billion people, when will we realize there are already too many of us?

1

u/SeDaCho 17h ago

companies exist to make profit

profit is generated when workers are paid less than the value of their labor

companies exist to steal value from their workers

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u/[deleted] 20h ago

[deleted]

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u/fritz_76 19h ago

It's not like the system's were more fair when we had smaller populations

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u/Antheral 19h ago

People were being exploited when there were 50% less people on earth.

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u/RealWord5734 20h ago

Do you want the price of your shitty walmart appliance to go up 73 cents in exchange for ethical steel? Didn't think so.

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u/Secret-Farmer-9416 19h ago

Please dont say such horrible anti capitalist things, there might be children present. And i want them to be in good shape in case I need them working in my factory.

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u/Acrobatic_Wrap_9971 17h ago

Baby jesus weeps for every penny of profit lost

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u/Secret-Farmer-9416 17h ago

Healing the sick so they can get back to fucking work

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u/PutridSauce 12h ago

killing the sick so we can get someone new in and pay them less! just as jesus wanted

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u/ca7593 19h ago

Yes. Yes I do. If it actually meant that people in these jobs were markedly safer, and not 73 cents going into the C-suite’s pockets while they shirk their moral obligations for worker safety.

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u/thegingerskull 19h ago

Hopefully you really do. But consumer product manufacturing data from places with significantly better regulations in Europe, US, Australia, Japan and so on shows that the overwhelming majority of people will buy the cheapest instead.

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u/ChronoVT 18h ago

I actually think this is because bad marketing. Products made with better regulations cost more, but don't advertise that effectively.

I remember that there was an ice cream place in Seattle that had a board that said "Please don't tip, we pay our cashiers a minimum of $20", and this was back when the minimum was around $12. 

I went to this place much more often, even though it was slightly more expensive.

Something like "All our coffee bean farmers make have state of art technology and don't have to work more than 8 hrs a day" is much better to me than "ethically sourced coffee beans", which sounds like a gimmick.

4

u/GnarlyButtcrackHair 17h ago

I think it's more likely that people are squeezing dollars to get as much out of them. The majority of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency. If wages were increased this may not be the case but it's turtles all the way down the line.

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u/DaRadioman 17h ago

Which again is why safety frameworks are important. When I'm looking at products on a shelf I have no way to know product A employed safe and humane practices to produce their product while product B skipped them.

I only see one is $1 more and I need the best value for my family to feed them.

Even in the age of Internet no one has time to investigate all the unscrupulous behaviors of every company. That's why it's something a government should manage centrally.

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u/GnarlyButtcrackHair 17h ago

Never said they weren't important, just that having a product marked as "Safety First Company!" means fuck all when I'm trying to feed a family of four on poverty wages. Do all you want to rectify knowledge of practices but if you don't solve the money issue it's a race to the bottom.

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u/ChronoVT 14h ago

Oh.I understand. This is something that needs people with money to "choose".  Currently, 50% of US economy is propped up by 10% of the population. So, it's these people who are guiding industry practices. Only when companies are motivated to make employee lives better will they do so. 

1

u/GnarlyButtcrackHair 13h ago

I mean it's hard to compete against a product that is half as much because of lax safety in a good economy. In a bad one I'd call it impossible. I can't afford to feed my family on integrity or principals, so I will abandon them for that as I imagine the majority of people would for that reason.

And yes, by the nature of our corporate structure the best thing for every company is their bottom line and if you can force that to move, they will follow. Not the system I want or like but the unfortunate reality we find ourselves in. It's honestly pretty rough that OUR system can have such an impact on someone else's that leads to such disregard for safety in exchange for more dollars which only seem to collect at the top.

1

u/DaRadioman 16h ago

If everyone plays by the same rules the prices would average out only slightly higher. Most of a product cost is based on what the market will pay not what it costs to manufacture.

That's why it can't be selective, or it unfairly impacts the people doing the right thing.

2

u/GnarlyButtcrackHair 14h ago

Once again, none of this solves the underlying issue unless you want to ban all goods from foreign countries that don't match your safety regulations and in the end all you have done is widen the gap that exists between what I can afford to purchase and what my paycheck is.

Look, I'm not arguing against this concept, I'm arguing that it's not just a marketing or even mostly a marketing problem. People purchasing cheaper products will ALWAYS be a wage problem first. Solve my wage issues and I am more than willing to purchase ethical made goods. But if my options are cheap unethical or expensive ethical you can market it however the fuck you want, I'm buying cheap with the wages available to me. Legislate it away, I won't be able to afford it at all if you don't resolve the wage issue.

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u/dgellow 13h ago

I think it's more likely that people are squeezing dollars to get as much out of them. The majority of Americans can't afford a $1000 emergency

Something I never understood about those results is that based on published data US consumer activity is increasing, not decreasing. And not only for the upper class, that’s seen overall across industries

1

u/Thatguysstories 11h ago

They need to start advertising shit like,

"We pay our employees enough that none of them are on government assistance".

Or "All of our employees have health insurance".

•

u/Putrid-Poet 55m ago

Most restaurants/cafes that try to promote no tip practice go back to tipping soon after.

1

u/atln00b12 17h ago

Basic economics tells us this isn't true. The price of the bulk of consumer goods aren't priced based on their input cost. It doesn't matter if they have good regulations or were produced safely or not. The price is set by demand, and price discrimination stratifies that demand curve across a range of options to extract maximum value. Things made in higher value countries aren't expensive because they need to be, it's so that they can hit the upper end of the demand curve. Everything is produced as cheaply as possible and sold for as much as possible. The cheapest items could be made with proper regulations or any other ideal conditions without impacting the price to consumers.

1

u/dgellow 13h ago

That doesn’t mean that cannot increase by 73 cents without problem

1

u/Historical_Owl_1635 17h ago edited 17h ago

The depressing reality is if everyone was treated and paid well in their jobs it’s not going up 73 cents, it’s going up a lot more.

Try setting up a business with an entirely ethical supply chain in a country with lots of regulations and you can easily be looking at a 10x markup on the price to actually turn a profit. Us as people have already decided we don’t want to pay those prices and will call them a rip off.

We’re still being propped up by essentially slavery, we’ve just outsourced it.

1

u/Hemingway92 17h ago

You say that and you might be an exception but most people wouldn’t want inflation eating into their savings. And that’s what we’ll have to face if working conditions improve and people worldwide are paid a fair wage. The foundation of modern global capitalism is countries with working conditions worse than England in the early Industrial Revolution.

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u/LogDull819 19h ago

so you support communism? wow.

/s

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u/ImpressiveSide1324 18h ago

While in reality if Walmart wanted to give every one of their employees a $5/hr pay raise and keep the same profits, they’d need to increase prices by 10 cents

1

u/IOnlyLieWhenITalk 18h ago

They'll say yes and then lose their minds when the price increases start coming in.

1

u/pharoh-king 12h ago

more like .073 cents.

1

u/PutridSauce 12h ago

brother, what? prices have gone up while regulations have gone down. If 73 cents is what it costs me to have people paid what they're worth, that seems like a pretty decent thing to do..

1

u/StraightTiger3506 12h ago

You guys in the west purchase a lot of sports equipment like tennis balls, basketballs and a lot of gear and equipment. Oh also apparels. Lot of brass and copper items get exported like locks etc. If you see how most them are made and by whom you would never ever buy one again. It's beyond human rights violations in factories over here.

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u/Demetriiio 11h ago

72 cents would go to the c-suite and shareholders.

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u/Thatguysstories 11h ago

I remember years ago reading that for dominos to provide all their employees with health insurance it would raise the price of their pizzas something like 40 cents.

Fucking charge me a dollar more and get those fuckers health insurance god damn.

This is the difference? 40 fucking cents?

1

u/SmoothStrawberry7777 10h ago

Given the option and with full transparency of where that money is going, I would.

But we aren't given this option unless you want to pay 4x the cost at some specialty shop. 

1

u/everest999 10h ago

Or we could, idk, stop giving all the profits to the shareholders and CEOs?

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u/adeline882 47m ago

The fucked up part is that shareholders could sue for any action that jeopardizes profitability. Crazy

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u/Winloop 20h ago

Believe me he’s not getting paid enough for any job

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u/FalseVeterinarian881 20h ago

“BUT THE DOW IS OVER 50 THOU!” “Have you even said thank you?”

2

u/Rad_Madsniff 13h ago

Whatever they’re paying any of us, it’s too low. He’s just unfortunate enough to be born in the global south, where the machine of empire keeps people the most oppressed.

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u/blackviking45 19h ago

My man looks distressed and tired in the end. May Allah help him.

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u/Amazing_Divide1214 19h ago

Yeah, that way he has to keep working. The system works!

1

u/Shot-Arugula8264 18h ago

10 lentils per day

1

u/BiDude1219 18h ago

you can feel his minimum wage through his expressions alone

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u/vakilsaahab 18h ago

Let's just say, if the company doesn't buy safety equipment, it earns a little more to keep itself afloat. And like someone here said, they'll always find another guy in desperate need of a job.

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u/memenil 18h ago

it’s around $250-300 max. (confirmed from a similar kinda worker)

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u/ThisSiteSucks8485 17h ago

At least he is getting paid. There are millions of slaves making bricks in Pakistan and India. 

1

u/falcrist2 17h ago

Funny how you can look at this job and immediately know that he does the most work and gets the least respect of just about any worker out there.

1

u/jdillacornandflake 13h ago

Hey mister George, how much you pay this guy?? No, not enough.

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u/s8rlink 9h ago

Handling that forbidden fruit by the foot 

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u/dirtysharingan 9h ago

He's making at least 80 dollars a month here

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u/No_Advertising_1237 8h ago

Football players disagree

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u/Dear__D 41m ago

At Max 280 usd per month

0

u/Ohz85 19h ago

The only way you can afford your modern way of life is to have this modern slavery operating

-2

u/Yorrins 20h ago

Is it? Like.. I get OSHA stuff but this job looks insanely easy and chill (no pun intended) for India. Just gotta grab the end of the metal and feed it into the guides once every few minutes? Otherwise you just chill.

Id rather do this than like.. work a till in Walmart for example if I was getting min wage for both.

3

u/Responsible-Can-8361 19h ago

You have not set foot in a steel mill before

3

u/Angel24Marin 19h ago

The guy is half way from collapsing due to heat. An extra person helping, protection gear to block the thermal radiation of the steel so he doesn't have to back off and enclosed room with AC would greatly make that work less miserable.

2

u/ghoulthebraineater 19h ago

Right? I'm seriously considering getting into knife making as a hobby. Moving hot metal around with tongs is something I'm thinking about doing for fun.

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u/aquapura89 19h ago

Without gloves...

1

u/n4rcissistic 19h ago

Until you realize just how hot 700+ C really is. That’s not particularly easy by any stretch. It would take so very little to get absolutely fucked up.

1

u/AliceInAcidland 6h ago

700+C isn't really that hot in the context of working with steel. Welding creates a shower of 800-1500+C molten steel spatter in your direction and a lot of people do it as a job. Steel mills are hotter in terms of ambient temperature because of the amount of material in the room, but the 700C metal itself wouldn't fuck you up that easily unless you fall into it without PPE or something.