The Big Shift: The gendered impact of twelve hour shifts on mining communities Author Peetz, David, Murray, Georgina Published 2008 Conference Title First ISA Forum of Sociology Copyright Statement © The Author(s) 2008. The attached file is posted here with permission of the copyright owners for your personal use only. No further distribution permitted.For information about this conference please refer to the publisher's website or contact the author's. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/20545 Link to published version http://www.isa-sociology.org/barcelona_2008/ Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au The Big Shift: The gendered impact of twelve hour shifts on mining communities Authors: Georgina Murray, School of Arts, and David Peetz, Department of Employment Relations, Griffith University, Nathan 4111, Brisbane, Australia. Email:
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[email protected]/ Conference: International Sociological Association, Session: RC44-03A, Work restructuring and New Strategies Location/time: 3.30pm, Room 109, Barcelona, Spain, September 5-8, 2008. Abstract: This is derived from work for a book we are currently writing on Women of the Coal Rushes, and the focus is on the impact that mining companies and changing shift patterns have had on women and communities. It includes the background to the move from five to seven day rosters, and then from eight to twelve hour shifts, why it was done, the perception of general decline in working conditions, and/or how twelve hour shifts have become embedded in the lives of the miners. It considers the impact of these shift patterns on spouses, children, fatigue and well-being of families; the decline of sporting clubs and the subsequent movement of spouses out of the mining communities to the coastal cities through drive-in-drive-out arrangements; implications for road safety and the community; whether the shift changes have been experienced differently by gender between men and women.