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Comment by carlob | Hacker News Reader

> For the foreign climbers, to go home now will mean forfeiting most or all of the fifty to ninety thousand dollars they have spent to be guided up Everest.

> Among the Sherpas’ demands are that the government […] require the guiding companies to pay Sherpas their salaries, even if they call off the remainder of the 2014 Everest climbing season;

So basically if a guiding company calls an expedition off they don't even have to give a raincheck, but they withhold the Sherpas pay? That seems predatory even if you workers are not dying like flies!

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Having worked as a rafting guide a few years back, this seems to be standard practice in outdoor type companies. People don't turn up, you don't work, you don't get paid.

Comparing rafting to climbing Mount Everest is unreasonable.

Firstly, I was comparing the way the companies pay staff, not the activities themselves.

Secondly, its not unreasonable at all. Sure the trip you may have done on vacation was an easy float down a class 3, but that's the equivalent of hiking a small hill an hour from your home. There are plenty of rafting expeditions that probably took way more planning and organisation and unknowns than some rich kid paying a million bucks for some company to hold their hand all the way up Everst.

...good thing he didn't do that. There's a big difference between "my rafting experience falls in line with this story, it looks like there's a bigger pattern" and "my rafting experience was like Mount Everest Sherpas".

The way the article was written made it sound like Sherpas are paid for their time. So if the climb is called off and they are used for the rest of the season, then they don't earn pay for the weeks they are no longer employed. If a beach is closed you don't keep paying your lifeguards the rest of the season for work they aren't doing.

Seems fine to me. It's actually worse for them if they were paid the entire season even when a cancelation happens since then there's less reason to call it off.

But the expedition companies don't refund any of the money they collected from the climbers that would have gone to the Sherpas, instead pocketing it for themselves. They should either refund the money to the climbers, or pay the Sherpas what they were planning on paying them. Not just go "oh well, it's our money now!"

Are you sure that money goes to the Sherpas? I think most of it actually goes to the government (hence the anger) and to supplies.

I think the $50,000-$90,000 is the 'all inclusive' cost covering a $10,000 Nepali government fee, sherpas, western guides, accommodation at base camps, food, drugs, bottled oxygen, trash removal, travel company profit margin and so on.

I want to add something to what sibling poster said (though I agree wholeheartedly).

Paying workers for their time and not hiring them works well when said worker is very highly skilled and you will not need them for a very long time: a lawyer, a chef for an event… If you plan on hiring someone for a whole season or longer I believe the right thing to do to protect both parties is to agree on a flat rate for the season.

On one hand a contractor can leave you whenever they please, but in practice (and this is the case) the employer will have the upper hand. This is why we need laws to regulate this type of work relations (I know this might get me downvoted here). I know this probably will not happen to the typical HN crowd working as contractors, but think of a housekeeper; I believe it's very important that regulation is in place to prevent this kind of exploitation.

Indeed. And if this is the sentiment of the owners of the Peak Freaks guiding company, what is stopping them from adopting what they would consider a more equitable arrangement with their family?

Peak Freaks is in support of the Sherpa people any which way it goes. They are our family, our brothers and sisters and the muscle on Everest.

They've already had to spend all the money on equipment, o2, licenses, travel, etc...

Travel and licenses maybe, O2 and equipment would still be good. And even if you were right, then they would not break even if the expedition happened and they had to pay the Sherpas.

Who's going to pay to move and store the O2 canisters until next season? What about the food? I don't know much, but I don't think logistics work there, like they do places more convenient. (I assume we're only using O2 as an example, as I'm sure there's tons more things). Also, there's tons of other work that's been done, like the expense of the rope and the ladders that have already been installed on the mtn for climbing season. I imagine that most of the money is already spent by the time people arrive at basecamp, and that the nominal money they could salvage isn't worth the effort after planning a big expedition.

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