Speaker calls for tower climbers to unite against corporate leadership
A threatening video is circulating in tower climber groups on Facebook claiming to be from infamous hacker group, Anonymous, which appears to be calling for tower climbers to unionize and threatens corporate ownership and trade groups.
The speaker, dressed in a mask from the film “V for Vendetta, which is a trademark of the hacktivist group, says, “The last few weeks of web traffic have shown us your struggle to consolidate your ranks and regulate your line of work. coming together as one is a quality that we find commendable”
The video, posted from the YouTube account Anontower Climber, mentions a group called the Brotherhood of Tower Hands, saying, “Since the creation of your Brotherhood of Tower Hands, others have created dissension across your ranks. Others have pushed a different agenda.”
It is unclear what is meant by this. It perhaps refers to a private Facebook group by that name, which has 52 members at the time this article was published. A domain name for Brotherhoodoftowerhands.org was set up on June 10 from an account from Beaver Springs, Pennsylvania. The website has not yet been activated.
“Allow us to shed some light on your real enemy,” the speaker goes on to say. “Corporate greed has affected us all from lowering your wages to distancing themselves from liability…You must go further than meerly mourning the ones you have lost. Take a bold and decisive course of action. This will ensure a day of work bring opportunity, not the risk of death or injury.”
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The speaker warns against industry trade associations, specifically the National Association of Tower Erectors, saying, “this is a country club for your employers. It is a secret handshake club for those who wish to have special treatment when it comes to their own doings.”
This is unsettling to some workers in the industry. One tower climber who chose not to be mentioned by name due to fear of retaliation told RCR Wireless News: “These guys have serious agendas with resources. They have obviously been following the industry. And is not to be taken lightly.”
The video ends with a cryptic threat: “To those spin doctors who are shoulder to shoulder with the corporate machine, be warned. We are anonymous. We are legion. We never forgive. We never forget. Expect us.”
Anonymous has been linked to a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites. Earlier this year, the organization was associated with hacks against the Iraqi terrorist group, ISIS.
The group claims to be ”an Internet gathering” with “a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives”