Minerals Council of Australia:
Safety & Health
As the peak industry organisation representing Australia’s exploration, mining and minerals processing industry, nationally and internationally, the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) considers the safety and health of the industry’s workforce as its number one priority.
The achievement of a safe workplace is a constant challenge, which requires the design of appropriate work practices, the training of employees and securing the more elusive attitudinal compliance coming together to achieve the desired result.
To assist the industry to achieve its goals, the MCA encourages the dissemination of good science. In this context, to promote a better understanding of the relationship between working hours, fatigue management and employee health, safety and welfare, the MCA commissioned Dr Angela Baker and Dr Sally Ferguson of the Australian Centre for Sleep Research at the University of South Australia, to document the relationship between sleep, working arrangements and fatigue, drawing on their own experience and research and the publicly available literature.
Working hours and fatigue management are not new to the minerals industry. Given the diversity of minerals production and processing operations and working environments and the complexity of social and cultural factors, it is simply not possible to design generic roster systems. As the researchers concluded, there is no such thing as a perfect roster, nor is there such a concept as “no risk” – risk management is the key.
These resource documents prepared by Drs Baker and Ferguson present information in a non-prescriptive manner relevant to managing fatigue in the workplace with the intention of assisting those responsible for the design and management of working arrangements. The objective of this work is to promote those relevant elements a minerals company should take into account when designing shift roster systems within their risk management strategies. The documents do not cover fatigue management strategies for fly-in fly-out operations.
The publication Work Design, Fatigue and Sleep is presented as two documents – a summary booklet, and a larger volume providing the underlying scientific evidence. They are provided as a resource to assist those responsible for designing working arrangements.
This information is made available to assist companies in striving towards establishing a safe and secure workplace free of industrial accidents. It is a matter for each company to decide what specific risk management arrangements are appropriate in individual circumstances.
MINERALS COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA
July 2004
