The unions have tightened up the way the work is done. Face a particularly messy job, in fact, and union awards will ensure you are paid extra. Demolition work involving the use of a jackhammer, for instance, not only requires that you have access to protective earmuffs and a face mask, but also that you are paid an extra two dollars an hour bonus. Working on a construction site above level seven also means more money . The salary opportunities in the relatively small local mining industry are similarly lucrative on paper but come at the cost of hard, dirty physical work and the added annoyance of working in remote and isolated locations.
Miners have to go to some pretty ordinary places in the middle of nowhere.
Although Mr Fraser says that the numbers applying for the jobs hasn't really changed, the type of people have. They still have to be the type of people who aren't afraid of hard work and want to work outdoors, but the equipment they use today is pretty sophisticated. It's no longer good enough that you can swing a pick. Although formal training in confined spaces is required, Meiss says you can never really get used to sewer smells. You can imagine when a sewer blocks up.