Big bucks and big trucks

"Every young man should be trying to get into this industry because they’d set themselves up for life," says 59-year-old Dennis Gullickson, who trains people to driver graders, dozers and excavators at Rio Tinto’s West Angelas iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of North Western Australia. "My wife is a chartered accountant and I left high school after the first year but I earn more than she does."

The Millenium Falcon, with better hours

Great salary packages are not the only thing currently attracting thousands of people to the idea of driving big mining trucks. The work pattern is attractive, with long shifts being compensated for by a week off in every three and an extra two weeks off after six months. But it’s the thrill of driving around in machines that look like something out of Star Wars that really get the hairs on the back of the neck standing up.

"It’s like kids in a sandpit," explains Dennis. "If you want to keep your kids entertained on the beach you give them a shovel and they run off and play with the sand. It’s the same thing when you’re in a big truck shifting dirt. It’s a magic time."

Dennis ran his own company driving road trucks for most of his life before ditching that and switching into mining 15 years ago.

"It was too much hard yakka [work]," he says. "I thought, ‘there must be something better than this, something easier." So I tried mining and I loved it. I’ve been doing it ever since."

Streetwise and safety-minded

Although Dennis says his previous truck driving experience helped him make the move into mining, it is not essential for any newcomer, nor is the need for academic qualifications like degrees. So what does it take to become a good big truck driver?

"You have to be reasonably fit," says Dennis. "You need to be street-wise, polite and intelligent and you need to be able to think about other people’s safety. You also need to trust and have the trust of your partner. Some blokes come up here and work the mines and their partners are miles away and they don’t know what each other is doing and things go wrong."

"But if you can handle that and you can think clearly about safety, you’re all set. We can take anyone from hairdressers to brick layers to carpenters and turn them into good truck drivers."

Intense training

Once you’ve signed up to become a big truck driver with a company like Rio Tinto you do a week-long training course about safety procedures and guidelines and, assuming you pass, you’ll be taken on site to start learning under the watchful eye of someone like Dennis.

"We start off on a piece of track with no one else around and once they’ve got the hang of the trucks, we take them into a working mine," he says. "It’s quite safe as we’re sitting there in full control of them the whole time. It’s intense one-on-one training and within a month people can pass their test and be off driving on their own."

Beware boredom

Once you’ve qualified you can expect to tuck into some gruelling shifts – days start at 5.30am and finish at 6pm and nights are 5.30pm ‘til 6am – making fatigue and boredom the hardest parts of the job.

"It’s hard to keep awake during the night shift at first," says Dennis. "But people help each other stay awake and get through it. On any shift people become bored of driving the same machines so we keep changing them around so they have to keep improving their skills and it keeps them interested. People become really competitive and like to try and do the job quicker or better than their colleagues did on certain machines."

Despite the demanding mental pressures, Dennis thinks the money on offer and generous work patterns make driving big mining trucks a dream job.

"It’s an excellent life," he says. "The money is good and because of the way the shifts work, I get a week off in every three weeks and a month off every six months. Getting to spend quality time with your loved ones is tremendous, as is having the money to do something with that time. I’ve just booked a dream holiday to America."

Breaking in

Before you reach for the Yellow Pages and start looking up your nearest mining company, you might want to think about putting some extra effort in to ensure you get the gig. High commodity prices have made mining an attractive industry and there are now thousands of people trying to break into these kinds of jobs. With that in mind, is it a good time to make the move?

"Definitely," says Dennis. "The industry is booming and there are lots of jobs around. There are also thousands of people going for them so you need to try and stand out from the crowd. Study what mining is about, especially with the expectations around safety. Go and get some work experience with a contractor and just keep pursuing it. When people get overlooked they tend to become downhearted but, even if you get knocked back a few times, you must keep trying. It’ll be worth it in the end."