The Feed reveals mental impact of FIFO work

Next week The Feed‘s Joel Tozer and Lanneke Hargreaves will talk to fly in fly out workers who risk their jobs to reveal the devastating impacts of FIFO work.

“You can always tell the people who have been out there too long, because their social skills are gone they just basically hate themselves and the world in general,” says Simon* a FIFO worker with more than 15 years’ experience.

It’s considered one of the most desirable jobs in the country – with high wages and mining companies covering the cost of food and accommodation. Every day thousands of Australians fly in and out of remote mining sites to work in one of the nation’s most profitable industries.

But workers say punishing rosters and long periods away from home are taking a toll with a growing number of FIFO workers taking their own lives.

“They’ve finally realised how many people are bloody doing it, I think you’ll find the crews on the ground have been saying something is wrong for years and years,” explains FIFO worker Simon*.

The Feed speaks with a paramedic who worked on a large FIFO camp in Queensland for two years. She says mining companies would pressure employees to go back to work while injured.

“I want people to know that it is not all it is cracked up to be….it is not for everybody and you make a lot of sacrifices for companies that don’t really care about you,” Lynette*, a paramedic at a FIFO camp tells The Feed.

During her time as a FIFO paramedic she treated scores of workers suffering from mental illnesses and attended suicides on site.

At least nine FIFO workers committed suicide in Western Australia in under a year prompting the state government to hold a parliamentary inquiry in to the deaths.

The Feed speaks with the family of one of the workers who say they’re disgusted with the way the mining company handled their son’s death.

“People are too scared to put their hands up and basically say ‘oh listen I’m having a hard time this week I need a week off’ because they are scared of job loss, simple as that,” says a FIFO workers father.

Fly in fly out is a relatively new work practice in Australia and it’s not just the FIFO workers that are suffering.

Across Australia small mining towns are struggling to survive as big companies opt to bring in workers, housing them in camps close to the mine rather than employing locals.

“The fact that the kids that live here can’t get jobs in these mines I think is ridiculous,” Vicki, a resident of the outback Queensland mining town Moranbah tells The Feed.

Moranbah now has two 100 per cent FIFO mines in operation. Locals are angry and say the practice is killing their community.

“The future for Moranbah is pretty grim…the big companies want what they want,” – Jenny, another Moranbah resident explains.

It’s not just mining companies who are to blame. The federal government has failed to act on a report that was delivered more than two years ago. The report – which enjoyed the support of both sides of politics – was authored by former Independent MP Tony Windsor and recommends the government makes big changes in order to save rural communities and curb the growing problem of suicide among FIFO workers.

“When you see some of the absurdities that are happening here – the fly in, fly out work practice, where a lot of the workers never really know each other because they’re coming in from all different destinations – it’s the ideal work practice for a capitalist mining company. Not traditionally dealing with mining communities, mining families, mining unions, all that’s just been thrown to the toilet,” says Tony Windsor, former Independent MP.

*name changed for anonymity

SBS 2 at 7.30pm Tuesday April 14