Guest Editors' introduction to the special issue on FIFO Work.

• Author: Rainnie, Al
• Position: Introduction - Editorial

This special edition of the Australian Bulletin of Labour is concerned with the recent and much-hyped phenomenon of Fly-In Fly-Out (FIFO) workers. We stress that our focus is on FIFO, not on the related question of work and employment in the resources sector, or on the broader impact of the resources sector on the regions and communities where it is located. There have been recent special editions of other journals on these matters: one assessing the impact of the Australian resources sector on rural societies (Rural Society 22,2 2013) and another examining the dynamics and pattern of development in the Pilbara (Australian Geographer 44, 3 2013), as well as an inquiry--reported in 2013--undertaken by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia (FHRE 2013).

This special issue originated from a two-day seminar organised jointly by Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, and Murdoch University. It was generously supported with a grant from the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ). The seminar was entitled Is WA Different? It was held in central Perth in May 2013 at the Curtin Graduate School of Business. Not surprisingly, most (though not all) papers had a WA focus. Furthermore, a significant number were focused on FIFO and attendant concerns. When we called for papers on FIFO employment, we attracted a number from Queensland--another resource-rich state with long-distance commuting arrangements.

How many FIFO workers are there? In any given week in 2013, 52,500 people passed through Perth airport bound for the resource sector's various operations in the north of the state. Their destinations were places like Karratha, some 1,500 kilometres or around 16 hours by road away from Perth. This helped to make Karratha the fourth largest domestic destination from Perth airport, with around 700,000 passengers annually. Karratha was far from being the only FIFO flight destination and not all FIFO workers went through Perth; increasingly, they flew in from regional hubs in towns like Busselton in the south of Western Australia, or from emerging hubs on the Sunshine Coast on the eastern coast of Australia. FIFO workers were known to base themselves in Bali and then fly in for their shifts. The image of the FIFO worker in the popular press was often negative--cashed up bogans (chavs)--as was their impact on the communities around resource sites-- cancer of the bush. Further, the impact of FIFO on source communities, particularly on FIFO families, was seen as problematic.

Such was the level of concern that the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia took masses of evidence and reported in 2013 (FHRE 2013). The report (FHRE 2013, p. 4) defined FIFO/ DIDO (Drive in, Drive out) as work which is undertaken by long-distance com muting on a regular basis for an extended period, at such a distance from the employee's home that they are not able to return to their permanent residence at the...