A new industry survey indicates Australian mining workers think the frequency of drug use among their co-workers is becoming a bigger issue
Mining People International’s recent survey asked just under 800 mine workers, “Do you think illicit drug usage by mining employees is becoming a bigger issue for mining companies?”
60.2% of respondents believed it was indeed becoming a bigger issue. 27.7% believe the issue is not getting any better or worse, and just 12.1% believe drug use is becoming a lesser issue.
The voting group was split into supervisor/manager-level employees, and non-supervisor/managers, and the survey results were much the same between the two.
“While at one level 60% of respondents were pessimistic about the issue and 40% were optimistic, there would appear to be an alignment between the two demographics,” Mining People International said in its analysis, before speculating the result meant mining company education and awareness programs are made available equally to all groups, or that it could mean illicit drug usage by mining employees is consistent across both groups.
“Whatever the answers to these questions, put simply, while the results of this poll suggest hings are getting worse, if one group had a wildly-differing view to the other, that might have been cause for even bigger alarm,” the group said.
“We just hope that this alignment is not a symptom of broad acceptance that not much can be done about the problem of drugs in Australia’s mining industry.”