Automated Mining Will Cost Jobs and Tax Income
March 6th, 2017And the remaining employees, living in “company-run mining camps” are to be monitored by the same sensor technology used to monitor the machines:
Thousands of Rio Tinto personnel live in company-run mining camps, spending not just work hours but leisure and home time in space controlled by their employer – which in this emerging era of smart infrastructure presents the opportunity to hoover up every detail of their lives.
Rio Tinto is no stranger to using technology to improve efficiency, having replaced human-operated vehicles with automated haul trucks and trains controlled out of a central operations centre in Perth.
The company is embarking on an attempt to manage its remaining human workers in the same way, and privacy advocates fear it could set a precedent that extends well beyond the mining industry.
Via: Guardian:
From a distance, everything looks normal at Rio Tinto’s Yandicoogina and Nammuldi mines in Pilbara, Western Australia. Huge trucks trundle along the mines’ reddish-brown terraced sides laden with high-grade iron ore. Back and forth, almost endlessly.
Watch for long enough, however, and you’ll see that no-one ever steps out of the cab. No lunch stops. No toilet breaks. No change of shift. That’s because these house-sized trucks are being remotely operated by ‘drivers’ based 1,200 kilometres away in Perth.
Automation is fast becoming a reality in the world of mining. Rio Tinto is reportedly trialling driverless trains and robotic drilling at its Pilbara sites too. Tele-remote ship loaders, automated rock breakers and semi-autonomous crushers are just some of the high-tech equipment now being rolled out by the sector’s leading edge companies.
