Hard Work on Shift Work

By James Anthony

If you are in a 9.00am to 5.00pm job and think life is tough for you or your glide-time colleagues then spare a thought for the more than one million Australian workers who have to do shift work.

They are the folk who tend to either be in mining, transport and service industries - running the late shifts at convenience stores and petrol stations - or nurses, police and ambulance people.

In order to keep many of these services running around the clock the workers are placed on what is known as rotating shifts where they will do a variety or morning, afternoon and overnight rostas.

According to the Bureau of Statistics more than 500,000 Australians are on rotating shifts, which are regarded by researchers and worker bodies as not only the most stressful, but have serious health risks.

Quick changes - doing a late-finishing afternoon shift followed by an early-morning one - are a regular occurrence, particularly in nursing, and there is growing evidence of health risks to shift-workers.

Figures show that most shift-workers are in safety-critical areas of work such as mining (43%), community services (33%) and the transport/storage industry (32%). While you may think mining workers are too far away to affect us, think about the dead-tired truck driver on the last few miles of his run near your travel route, or the nurse/doctor dispensing your medicine or helping you in Accident and Emergency and you may think again.
Bureau of Statistics figures also show that at least 2.3 million Australians (just over a third of the workforce) works at night.

This hits family life and unions report many shift workers find themselves under enormous strains to maintain both their work and families. Night-shift workers and those who work weekends miss out on many family get-togethers.

But that isn't the worst of it according to the Circadian Learning Centre in America. Its studies into the issue have shown night-shift workers (from around the globe) can suffer from sleep disorders, tiredness, heart disease, high blood pressure and stomach upsets. They also face a higher risk of ulcers.

In the centre's study of Italian workers, day workers took 12 years to develop ulcers, it was 5.6 years for permanent night workers and only 5 years for rotating-shift workers. Shift workers were also more likely to get fat because of unusual eating habits and lack of exercise, they had a higher divorce rate, abuse drugs and alcohol more and suffer depression.

In Finland, the Helsinki Heart Study found that over a five-year period, rotating shift workers had a 40 to 50% increased risk of heart disease. Nurses in the United States who worked rotating shifts for six years had a 51% greater risk of a heart attack than others on day shift.

Two sleep experts have appeared in the Australian Journal of Medicine stating that night-shift workers are deprived of at least 15 to 20 hours sleep a week. Leslie Olson and Antonio Ambrogetti said their research had shown that most night workers only got between five to six hours sleep a day.

In what should be a warning to employers of people in high-risk industries, both Olson and Ambrogetti said that workers needed at least 48 hours between night shifts and other rostas to recover. Otherwise, they said: "For workers to go from night shifts to day or afternoon shifts with no break is dangerous."