Some workers feel like they’ve been left high, dry, and out in the cold

Bothered by bad office coffee and rush-hour traffic? Tell it to the people who staff the world’s largest radio telescope, perched 5000 metres above sea level in a remote Chilean desert.

On 22 August, almost 200 people went on strike and demanded a pay rise to compensate for extreme working conditions at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which sits on the Chajnantor plateau in the Atacama desert. The site, which will ultimately include 66 radio dishes, officially opened in March, although construction is on-going.

Water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere blocks shorter radio wavelengths, so the thin air and lack of moisture in the Atacama are ideal for radio astronomy. ALMA is already allowing scientists to peer through cosmic dust clouds and see planets forming, and to spot the light from extremely distant galaxies.

But cleaning crews, mechanics and administrators working at the site have to deal with chapped skin, altitude sickness and chilly temperatures – not to mention being hours away from civilisation.


Victor Gonzalez, president of the ALMA union, says that the workers have gone on indefinite strike following a breakdown in negotiations with Associated Universities Incorporated, which manages the observatory. The union is demanding a 15 per cent pay rise along with additional benefits for time spent in the highest, most extreme parts of the site.

Basic operations

In a statement, ALMA management said that it regrets it could not reach an agreement with the union and has activated contingency plans to continue basic operations.

“ALMA is not making new on-sky observations at the moment, but the Joint ALMA Observatory is monitoring equipment status,” says Charles Blue, a spokesman for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia, which co-manages ALMA. Right now the array is in an early science phase that includes taking observations, analysing incoming data and scheduling new projects, some of which can be done during the strike.

“Scientific staff continue to reduce data already in the pipeline, schedule planned observations and refine software,” says Blue, who adds that the team believes they can finish the first round of planned science observations. “Unanticipated delays, for whatever reason, are always factored into long-range observing schedules.”

Karin Öberg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, recently used ALMA data to study the chemical makeup of an infant solar system. She is optimistic that the strike won’t cause too much of a delay in research. “We all hope this is something that can be solved in a reasonable timeframe.”

Öberg adds, though, that even when ALMA is completely constructed and staff numbers are reduced, some maintenance workers and other engineers will always need to remain onsite. “These big telescopes aren’t static, you continuously want to upgrade them with the latest technology,” she says. “You could control observations from further away, but you will always need people close to the site.”

Additional reporting by Victoria Jaggard