this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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Communism

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 15 points 5 days ago (2 children)

A have a few old Mohawk friends from Six Nations who did this work. Most of the time, these guys were either hungover, drunk or high when they were doing this work. It was the only way to not be afraid of walking up there.

No amount of drugs can keep me from being afraid of that

[–] _____@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago

further proof labour creates more problems than just the work itself

[–] Hikermick@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

According to a documentary I watched on television some years ago, there was an expected one death for every million dollars spent on a skyscraper

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There is absolutely no way that's correct. No one is expecting 500+ deaths on a construction site.

I thought that maybe that documentary was referring to a specific time period so I looked into it...

Empire State Building, 1929: 5 deaths and the building cost 41 million dollars.

Sears Tower, 1973: 5 deaths, 175 million

World Trade Center (full complex), 1973: 60 deaths, 1.5 billion

The only skyscraper I found that is close to that figure is the Burj Khalifa (2010, 1.5 billion) which "unofficially" had hundreds of deaths. And even then.... it'd need to be 1500 deaths to match that statistic.

[–] Hikermick@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Pretty sure that was pre OSHA

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Still a far cry from 1 death per million dollars. Even what is considered the deadliest skyscraper construction in history (Burj Khalifa) is short.

There's no way that stat was ever true.