An inquiry into Western Australia’s fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) mining sector has unveiled a “staggering” range of sexual abuse and harassment against female workers.
The WA government released a report on Thursday that said sexual assault has been “generally accepted or overlooked” in the FIFO mining sector, with women’s rights undermined by “the abuse of positions of power” and “the culture of cover-up.”
The inquiry was told that women accounted for 74 percent of FIFO mining workers who reported sexual harassment at work.
Among the “horror stories” revealed in the report was one incident involving a woman facing review due to a near-miss incident while driving a haul truck. She was told by a male supervisor that he could make a safety investigation “go away” if she obeyed his sexual request….