FIFO Days Numbered
 

Discourage fly-in, fly-out work, FMG boss says

Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) boss Andrew Forrest has told a conference in Perth that the use of fly-in-fly-out workers in the mining industry is not sustainable.
Mr Forrest says FMG aims to phase out the practice for operations that are near regional centres.
He says fly-in-fly-out around regional centres like Port Hedland should be discouraged through taxation incentives.
"We skew the taxation system away from people being able to afford a second house, or to afford owning a house in Port Hedland or Karratha, when in fact everyone would actually like to own their family home," he said.

From ABC Media

Yeh its great to own a home in port headland if you are from there, but when 90% of your employees are from Perth its not going to happen. Unless there was a massive increase in salaries!!

overall i think its safe to say... "tell him his dreaming"

Maybe his use of locals may happen long term if he has the numbers cant see why it wont happen the mines up north were not operating flyinn flyout 15 years ago so you never know.

When the iron ore boom started back in the late 60's they tried setting up towns in Tom Price etc. Housing was provided with all the goodies like air-conditioning (a relative luxury back then) and utilities heavily subsidised. Free access to public swimming pools, etc etc. Money was good and easy to save because everything was laid on. It was still hard to retain staff long term. Once the kids got to high school age, it was time to move on. No jobs for them in town, so the social problems started if they stayed. Today the larger towns that have survived - like Port Hedland - are hardly models of what it takes to provide quality family life. The blokes hit the piss, the kids get into trouble, the wives are bored witless.
FIFO works- it will stay for as long as the stuff in the ground needs to be dug up.

It's bad enough they want people to work in some of these ****eholes, let alone live there!;)

As lemel has said wages would have to go even higher and as that's not about to happen, FIFO is the cheaper otion!:ok:

Indigenious workforce? Good luck!:E

Couldn't agree more. Have done the FIFO thing ex Perth to Port Hedland, Karratha and a couple of equally as salubrious places... FIFO will exist as long as these rip-off communities continue to extort people of the money the suffer such inconvenience to earn. In my experience, there is not a ****-show in hell I would ever live in those places again. Everything is inflated in price beyond belief -on the basis of "transport costs". Pigs ear. The businesses in these areas treat everyone through their door as if they have a wallet a foot-thick with $100 bills. Rents are preposterous. Best I could afford was a dorm-room in a back-packers shared with up to 7 other occupants -at $180 a week!!! I'm paying only that for a comfortable 2-bedroom apartment of my own now on the E coast. Rooms for rent in an established house in Karratha were usually $600-$800p.w. plus expenses! The Caravan park was well in excess of $400 pw., the workers camp (if not employed by the primary miner) well over $1000pw!!!

Whilst Mr Fortescue Metals may wish it were so, it is very unlikely to happen as long as the communities avaricious attitude continues.

Perhaps he should spend some time talking to the mine companies who spent a lot of money to get Jabiru township up and running in the early 1980's!

I suppose he has to draw a line in the sand its one reason why the places are expensive locals are far and few between, and I know they are **** places were up that way for many years. Having the old man on the piss and the kids in trouble that happens in every capital city so I cant see how flyinn flyout will fix those problems.

He could be right. Murrin has stopped mining. Mnt Gibson has stopped production, Mnt Kieth is trimming work force. Brambles has had to shuffle blokes to keep them employed, Chinese pulling out of contracts all over the place.......... if the commodities prices keep falling, there will be no place for FIFO.

Radio Saigon

Actually part of the reason everything is expensive there is because of the FIFO mentality.
Were there better infrastructure and a committment to some of the regional centres by the companies AND the Guvmint, the living conditions would be somewhat better and less onerous.

The real problem with FIFO is that it generates an itinerant population in TWO places simultaneously. Home and the work site, and manages to wreck BOTH of them.
The home cause the guy is only there half the time, and the work place because he has no interest or commitment to it.
I would be interested to hear how many marriages have broken up directly as a consequence of FIFO.
Mt. Isa used to be a great spot back in the eighties. Now, with a large FIFO contingent, it's a rotating prison ward.

Bwaaahahaha. Hey Zeebee, did you see the advert on your post?. you need your MARCSTA to get on site for your FIFO job. :E
EDIT.... now its changed to Mining vacancies and mine site positions :}:}
The advertising robot has a sense of humor.

The problem is that you can't build a town at every minesite. It's going to be cheaper to do FIFO.

However reading between the lines I may think that Mr Forrest may be trying to offset the cost of mining to the government. This is already a sore point some places where both the mines and the government are refusing to pay infrastructure costs. You see if you build a town then the government has to pay for stuff like roads, power, airports, Police etc etc etc If its FIFO then the mine has to pay for everything.

Gee Nev, looks like your next on the adverts funny list.

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If the unemployment rate in WA stays at around 2.8% there will be no option but FIFO for mining companies. As soon as the unemployment rate increases to about 6-7% then we will see a reduction in FIFO as companies will be able to make living locally a condition of employment and miners will have little choice but to move.

There is not much FIFO in Qld (probably because the mines are within 2-3 hours driving time of major centres) but even the small amount that is around is being reduced. I am currently negotiating an agreement for a mining contractor and they want to change from an even time roster to a 5 day week. This is the beginning of the end of FIFO on that site and is an indicator of what is to come.

My utopian vision for the Pilbara
 

I think its a great idea in principle. Imagine if Karratha, Hedland, Carnavon, Broome etc and all the ****holes had a pile of money poured into the infrastructure to make them a worthwhile place for people to live. People could actually have a choice outside of Perth of where to live comfortably. At present there is little to no incentive for anybody to even rent in those places let alone buy a place and put roots down. I mean the options are limited to living in an expensive sea container or a tent in some of those spots. What sort of a lifestyle is that? There is vast expanses of land up there so why not grow those run down mining towns into world class cities? Make them cities that would attract tourists from around the world and so inspire them to want to emigrate to the Pilbara instead of just passing through to somewhere better...just my 2 cents...:)

'VG' I can see yr point & to some degree I agree. But the biggest social problem with any town like Karatha Etc is isolation. You can build a city that has everything miles away from anywhere, all the mod cons a place you would never want to leave but for one thing, social interaction with others not in yr area. Such a plan/city is too far away from the major centers/cities when it comes to WA.

About 75% of Ozzies live on the East Coast (or the "J" curve), why we ask? Because pretty much the whole coast line is occupied to some degree & therefore allows people to freely move about doing jobs/taks other than the one single thing that keeps most of the wests major centers alive, mining.
I didn't mention tourism 'cause that's Aus wide:)

For now FIFO works.



CW

mmm
 

Im a miner with Rio and let me say that there is fat chance in hell FIFO will cease to exist.

The single reason miners like myself work in the industry is certainly not for the love of it, we would rather be, for example, flying for a living!

No, we do it simply for the MONEY!

Now if i was forced to move my family to "lovely" Tom Price, i would be forced to pay extortionist rental prices. There goes a third of my wage.

Now because of a lack of higher educational facilities in these towns, it would mean sending my two sons to boarding school in Perth. There goes another third of my wage.

Then there's the higher cost of food, fuel, etc etc. There goes another third of my wage.

How much would i save, how much sooner would i pay of my mortgage?

About the same time as somebody in Perth. Might as well stay there then, which means no miners

So in a nutshell, the problem simply comes down to infrastructure.

So whose going to pay for all those lovely houses and high schools to be put in place, to make it more financially viable for miners to live in these towns?

Sure as hell Mr Forrest 'aint. Sure as hell the government 'aint. Sure as hell the towns themselves 'aint. So who is?

Which is the reason FIFO will never disappear.

So UFO...

...how would you make anything like the coin you're making now?

I've worked as a miner too and you know as well as I do: as soon as the management have the upper hand, their attitude becomes "If you don't like it, you can f*** off".

My first twin job, many many moons ago, was flying drilling crews to/from Mackay 4 on/4 off. It lasted 6 months until the management told the guys that there was no opportunities for them back in the Hunter and either they moved to MK or looked for another job. :ugh:

I'm currently in the mining industry as well. I live in the town I work in. Educated 4 kids without problems. We have every facility you could ever require in a town and enjoy living here. the town has a community that cares for the town and a shire that spares no expense on making it a desirable place to live. We get to the big smoke a couple of times a year, but only for as long as it takes to get the job done and get back out again.
We bought our house. and never plan to sell it.
we have a large transient population these days due to the FIFO culture, but I doubt if the industry could get a tenth of the work force they require locally, as they have increased the size of their work force to nearly three times the population of our town, and we all already have jobs, so they gotta fly em in.
A lot of the mines around here have employees that don't even know that the town exists. I personally know several people that have been on site for several years, but have only ever left it on the plane and have never been to the town 50K away.
There will always be a requirement for FIFO as long as the mines operate, as the population are generally employed and there isn't enough people in town to sustain the mines. most of the FIFO workers already have a life elsewhere and are happy to come and work and then go back to it on the swing..... hell why change where you live if you don't have to.

I don't know what planet you're currently on but in no particular order (or is the list exhaustive) in the NW of Qld alone are:

Mt Dore, Century Mine, Phosphate Hill (The Monument), Osbourne, Cannington Mine, Ernest Henry, Gunpowder and any number of small prospects and continuing explorations. All either with their own runways or one very close by in places like Cloncurry etc.

Granted they may well be within 2-3 hours by vehicle, however the local wet season puts an end to driving for many months of the year and while it may well be on an overall smaller scale than WA, some of the aviation infrastructure that has recently seen a large cash injection has been at Cannington, Phosphate and Century mines. These mines have a long distance rotating FIFO workforce of around 550-600 each on top of the local FIFO (based in either Isa or in the Gulf towns) as well as the locals who drive to work (around 1 in 5 at the site). Then there are the contractors....

The number of Saabs, Metros, F-100s, Dash 8's and Brasillias busy banging around on top of the Barons, Kingairs, Chieftains, Titans and C402's etc etc (and soon to be B1900's - go gettum Peter and Gina!) :ok: is incredible sometimes. It is nothing to see an F-100, 2 Saabs, a Metro, a B200 and a few piston twins on the ground in one place at one time! In fact that happens often at Century and at Cannington at varying times. And of course they all want to get airborne at the same time and have the same destination also....

Without FIFO the likes of M*c*air, Alliance, Westwing, Skytrans, Savannah etc etc would be in very different financial places right now. I personally cannot see much in the way of a reduction in FIFO numbers (especially in NW Qld) in the near future, especially while commodities themselves are weathering the market reasonably well, it is just that the companies extracting the commodities are copping a hiding on the Stock exchange.

Don't Sunstate do some in SW Qld? Thangool etc?

Regards,

OpsN.;)