Report reveals culture of sexual harassment in mining industry

Details have emerged of women being sexually harassed in the mining industry, and men who witness it doing nothing.

A female worker in a Queensland mine said she was urinated on by a male colleague when she refused his advances.

Another woman said some male staff would sniff her seat when she got up and make remarks such as: “I smell c**t.”

Meanwhile, other male colleagues who witnessed the abuse would reportedly say nothing and let it happen.

These shocking incidents of sexual harassment in the mining industry are one of a number that have been uncovered in a confidential survey, reported by the Mackay Daily Mercury.

The survey, organised by the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), invited workers in the mining sector to share their thoughts and experiences on sexual harassment and bullying in the sector.

It uncovered that the problem was so entrenched, one man working in the industry said the solution to the claims of harassment was simple: “Get rid of women out of mining, [we] never had this problem years ago.”

The allegations have followed claims by a female journalist in Western Australia who said she was groped and propositioned at a mining industry conference just last week.

The results of the CFMEU survey were not entirely unforeseen.

“We expected there to be a problem … it’s just how big a problem that it was,” CFMEU Queensland president Steve Smyth told the Daily Mercury.

It found one in four workers in the industry had directly experienced or had witnessed sexual harassment.

The survey invited people to explain their experience of sexual harassment and bullying in mine sites.

‘He pissed on me’

One victim, referred to in the survey as Mel, worked in a Central Queensland mine in 2014.

She rejected the advances of a male colleague because she didn’t want to “mix work with pleasure”.

“That rejection just got out of hand when we got back to site,” she said.

She eventually changed shifts to avoid the man, who then changed his shifts to work with her again.

At a pub, Mel said he started harassing her calling here a “sl*t,” and “prick tease”.

When she left, Mel said the man followed her to the car park.

“I turned around … and he’s got his penis out he’s pissed on me.

“He just laughed, he thought it was funny.”

When she made a complaint, she was sacked, she said, because when there were incidents between staff the mine got rid of both people.

One woman said she was sacked for reporting the abuse. Picture: Renae Droop

Men sniffed female colleague’s chair

Sarah, also not her real name, was working in northern Queensland in the mid-1990s when she was harassed verbally.

“I’ve got to listen to a conversation like … ‘Do you reckon she takes it in the a**e,’” she said.

She said that when she got up from her seat some colleagues would sniff where she had sat saying comments like “I smell c**t” as she walked away.

“It’s ruined me.

“I should be married, I should have children. I just don’t let anyone near me because I’m so untrusting.”

The survey found one in four people had witnessed sexual harassment at mine sites. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty

Mr Smyth said the survey should lead to a parliamentary inquiry into harassment and bulling in the mining industry.

“It’s certainly concerning and the real challenge for us as a union and the industry is how we go about dealing with it.”

He said harassment often went unreported if it was a manager or a friend of a manager who was doing the abusing “for fear of reprisal”.

Mr Smyth said diversity in employment in the sector had increased but more needed to be done by employers to increase support, education and training.

Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union Queensland president Steve Smyth. Picture: Daryl Wright

Woman groped at miners conference last week

Just last week, a female journalist from Kalgoorlie in WA detailed how she was harassed at a mining conference in the town.

Kalgoorlie Miner deputy editor Amber Lilley said she was groped and sexually propositioned at the Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum.

“A man in mining told me he had a ‘rager’ over me,” she said.

“He then proceeded to tell me to ‘Call him daddy’ before groping me as I walked away through the crowd, and he followed,” she wrote in the Kalgoorlie Miner.

A report released in June by the WA Legislative Assembly, titled “Enough Is Enough” detailed how sexual harassment in the state’s fly-in, fly-out mining towns was “generally accepted or overlooked”.

The report detailed incidents including where a man put his hand down a woman’s top in front of colleague who did nothing to intervene, and another where iron ore would be dumped on the trucks of women who turned down sexual advances from their male colleagues, reported the ABC.

“To hear the lived reality of the taunts, attacks and targeted violence, the devastation and despair the victims experienced, the threats or loss of their livelihood that resulted, was shattering and it’s completely inexcusable,” the report’s author, MP Libby Mettam, told parliament.

One person said mine workers would sniff her seat when she got up.

Referring to the CFMEU survey, Resources Safety and Health Queensland told the Mercury sexual harassment “must not be tolerated anywhere”.

It urged any workers who were harassed or bullied to make a complaint to the body.

“RSHQ will report any instances of conduct that could amount to an offence under the Criminal Code to the Queensland Police Service.”